India to resume regular international flights from March 27


https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nr ... 078951.cms

https://indianexpress.com/article/india ... 7-7807041/

sabby wrote:

India to resume regular international flights from March 27


https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nr ... 078951.cms

https://indianexpress.com/article/india ... 7-7807041/

Oh, finally light at the end of tunnel!

pune wrote:

TokyoImperialPa wrote:

Does anyone think it is ludicrous to build airports in every Tier 2 and Tier 3 city as a near-future alternative to improving railway infrastructure?

I think it is better to focus on building large airports in Tier 1 cities for long haul and mid haul flights, which people would only take a few times a year, and instead improve the railways to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

Surely it would not be profitable in the current climate to build airports in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and provide the middle income services that would otherwise be provided by the train?

After Adani took over many stations, some 10k Railway stations have been given the boot. So, what's gonna happen in those 10k places, first the services will be made less and less and once it is shown that the station is in losses, it will be closed. In other countries, they chose to nationalize, here we chose to privatize.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g63SJwFdGTQ&t=2340s

The whole video is fascinating even though it is of another industry altogether but it does parallel in many ways changes happening across industries.

Coming to the civil aviation topic, from almost all the people big and small, the word is 2023/24 for the bubble. The sad part is that the country still has a high omnicron caseload, till that doesn't come down sufficiently, and no other deadly variaitons start or come to India, we just won't know. And summer is just two months away so we will know within 40 odd days.

First of all India does not have 10K stations. So what the heck are you talking about?

Best, Subramanian

edealinfo wrote:

1. How was your Vistara trip?

2. I travelled on Air India domestic "executive class". The cloth seats "looked" soiled/dirty that really put me off as I didn't feel "executive". I wonder if the economy seat was cleaner.

It was ok! But overall felt slightly letdown. Seats in 2-3-2 layout were very comfortable but no hot meals or beverage round on a 8 hour flight in PY? Just a cold bread roll. It would have been tasty if it was atleast at room temperature! Air India on the return was better - one hot meal and one snack along with 2 beverage rounds - in economy. Also, the Air India crew were more friendly overall. The Vistara crew made us feel like they were doing us a favor!

The biggest disappointment however was the filthy seats. My husband has a habit of wiping down airline seats with those alcohol-tissue thingies. Turned up absolutely dirty even after 2 rounds of wipe down! Ugh! Had to ask him to stop because people were staring! I thought Vistara atleast would buck the trend with Indian carriers on that count. But no!

This was 6 months before Tata acquired AI but they look like a match made in heaven!

Dirty interiors on brand new planes are not an AI thing. All Indian carriers have had that problem!

subramak1 wrote:

First of all India does not have 10K stations. So what the heck are you talking about?

Best, Subramanian

Based on a Parliament reply from the UPA era - There 7273 stations on IR network with above ground platforms. Not counting the stations without platforms or platforms at ground level.

Anyone have any insight on how the new terminal in BLR is progressing? It’s hard to find any current info (or I’m looking in the wrong places!!).

BawliBooch wrote:

Dirty interiors on brand new planes are not an AI thing. All Indian carriers have had that problem!

It would be great if there is research on the reasons for this. Dirty air? As in dust in the air that settles on the seta and over time just seeps into the materials?

edealinfo wrote:

It would be great if there is research on the reasons for this. Dirty air? As in dust in the air that settles on the seta and over time just seeps into the materials?

I have a theory but would refrain from discussing those here!

Indigo has started retiring their earliest NEO aircraft starting last month. VT-ITC and VT-ITD have left the fleet and are currently being stored in Istanbul. VT-ITA should be leaving the fleet by the end of this month.

BawliBooch wrote:

subramak1 wrote:

First of all India does not have 10K stations. So what the heck are you talking about?

Best, Subramanian

Based on a Parliament reply from the UPA era - There 7273 stations on IR network with above ground platforms. Not counting the stations without platforms or platforms at ground level.

How do you go from 7273 to 10K ? If you google, the number is around 7500 stations all inclusive. Even in 1980s the number of stations was only around 8 K and many halt stations have been closed across the country.


Best, Subramanian

Does anyone here know why 4 of Air India's A321s (VT-PPA to VT-PPE) have been shifted from DEL to Hindon in January and February of this year?

johhn14 wrote:

Anyone have any insight on how the new terminal in BLR is progressing? It’s hard to find any current info (or I’m looking in the wrong places!!).

Slow progress, BIAL keep saying that the terminal will open Q3 2022, but very unlikely. There seems to be lot of work left as you can see from the latest google image from the below post.
https://www.skyscrapercity.com/threads/bengaluru-kempegowda-international-airport-blr.644756/post-177797989

BawliBooch wrote:

edealinfo wrote:

It would be great if there is research on the reasons for this. Dirty air? As in dust in the air that settles on the seta and over time just seeps into the materials?

I have a theory but would refrain from discussing those here!

of course vomit, sweat etc will get into the fabric.

BawliBooch wrote:

edealinfo wrote:

1. How was your Vistara trip?

2. I travelled on Air India domestic "executive class". The cloth seats "looked" soiled/dirty that really put me off as I didn't feel "executive". I wonder if the economy seat was cleaner.

It was ok! But overall felt slightly letdown. Seats in 2-3-2 layout were very comfortable but no hot meals or beverage round on a 8 hour flight in PY? Just a cold bread roll. It would have been tasty if it was atleast at room temperature! Air India on the return was better - one hot meal and one snack along with 2 beverage rounds - in economy. Also, the Air India crew were more friendly overall. The Vistara crew made us feel like they were doing us a favor!

The biggest disappointment however was the filthy seats. My husband has a habit of wiping down airline seats with those alcohol-tissue thingies. Turned up absolutely dirty even after 2 rounds of wipe down! Ugh! Had to ask him to stop because people were staring! I thought Vistara atleast would buck the trend with Indian carriers on that count. But no!

This was 6 months before Tata acquired AI but they look like a match made in heaven!

Dirty interiors on brand new planes are not an AI thing. All Indian carriers have had that problem!

I had a similar experience a couple of years ago, well before the pandemic. That's probably around half a decade from today. I had asked few questions to the stewards but they had no answer. Stewards usually have inside info. (whether male or female) as to what's happening with the company or/and the product, in this case Vistara. And this was on a light which was less than half-full on both. They somehow don't seem to be as hungry as Indigo is

blrBird wrote:

johhn14 wrote:

Anyone have any insight on how the new terminal in BLR is progressing? It’s hard to find any current info (or I’m looking in the wrong places!!).

Slow progress, BIAL keep saying that the terminal will open Q3 2022, but very unlikely. There seems to be lot of work left as you can see from the latest google image from the below post.
https://www.skyscrapercity.com/threads/bengaluru-kempegowda-international-airport-blr.644756/post-177797989

FWIW, don't see things returning to normal at least till 2024-2025. so they have plenty of time to do things at their speed. It might be even longer than that.

I was wondering, will UA (& AA) really end up starting service to BLR? Especially now that they can't use Russian airspace. UA said 2 weeks ago it was planning to start SFO-BLR in October...

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisc ... ussia.html

I see that AI uses Russian airspace when flying from SFO to BLR but not on the return flight.

Ytraveller wrote:

I was wondering, will UA (& AA) really end up starting service to BLR? Especially now that they can't use Russian airspace. UA said 2 weeks ago it was planning to start SFO-BLR in October...

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisc ... ussia.html

I see that AI uses Russian airspace when flying from SFO to BLR but not on the return flight.

They can fly over pacific ocean to avoid Russian air space. For SEA-BLR, 789 should be fine on both legs except rare winter days. For SFO-BLR, westbound leg could be tricky in Winter season. Maybe they would block seats or add a technical stop depending on the wind on the day.

Came across this today - https://www.livemint.com/news/india/ind ... 17099.html

Now while I can't predict what will happen 20 years down the line, can predict say 2-3 years which I have said above. Domestically, we will run, but internationally will take a long time to get back where we were and that eats not just profits but also interest payments to lessors. To add another bit to it, where are the airports to accommodate these 2200 odd Airbus aircraft. Even if you take it as an average, that will be 5 aircraft per month conservatively. The New Mumbai Airport has been on the drawing board for 4-5 years now, the latest it can complete even it goes hammers and tongs is the end of 2026-2027 and that is just the phase one.

And Airport construction in India has long gestation times, minimum of 10 odd years. So we would need at the minimum 50 odd airports just to park the airframes. Not to mention MRO jobs. The only one I knew is in Bangalore and it can't handle the traffic now, how it will cope with 10 times the traffic needing its services. And IIRC, that one is Boeing, not Airbus. So you will need to also find and fund an Airbus MRO set up with tooling, men, women, and space. All of which is in short supply.

Then there is the question of financing, not just for the airframes but also the airports. Equity markets are nervous today, dunno how they will be tomorrow. India can't approach the debt market as we are already 87% of our GDP in loans. The only way out is international bonds. But this Govt. has shown a marked reluctance to use bonds and the bond market has been pretty lackluster and even the Govt. hasn't shown any great interest in the bond market in the last 7-8 years.

Adding to the above, we would need 5000 odd pilots, about 10k FA's and all kinds of service personnel. China has been running its pilot program for 5-6 years now. We haven't. This was also disclosed or shared on the recent China Airlines where there were 4 pilots, The Chinese are looking to make more and more use of their C919 (Comac) aircraft which they have designed and is going under certification. They are hoping to start inducting that aircraft later this year saving a bunch of foreign exchange as well. We have no program like that

The Chinese C919 program - https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news ... evelopment

Another take on the C919 - https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/ ... 874048.cms

Qantas announces 4 weekly Sydney - Bengaluru flight eff September 14, 2022 on an A330.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... ia-flights

SATexan wrote:

Qantas announces 4 weekly Sydney - Bengaluru flight eff September 14, 2022 on an A330.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... ia-flights

I am assuming based on the article that arrival in BLR will be 3:30 PMish? Should work great for connections I would think.

But it won’t just be about that 12-hour trip to Bangalore: Qantas will partner with IndiGo, India’s largest domestic carrier, to give travellers “improved one-stop access to more than 50 Indian cities.

Congratulations to QF and BLR! Nice.

VTORD wrote:

SATexan wrote:

Qantas announces 4 weekly Sydney - Bengaluru flight eff September 14, 2022 on an A330.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... ia-flights

I am assuming based on the article that arrival in BLR will be 3:30 PMish? Should work great for connections I would think.

From the Simple Flying website:

… four times a week with departures out of Sydney at 09:30 on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. After 11 hours and 55 minutes in the air, the Airbus will land in BLR at 16:55.

QF68 is the return flight, departing Bengaluru on the same days. The jet pushes back at 18:35 and will fly southeast through the night to touch down in Sydney at 10:30 the following day.

Air India Employees quarters given to Adani and they are moving to Bombay HC to protest the same -

https://hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com ... n/90913483

These are the same people or almost 90% of them who voted for the BJP in the center.

What a play they did, give Air India to Tatas and then give the employees quarters to Adani, soon most of the employees would be fired adding to the record joblessness we have in India.

Does anybody know what's going on in the Indian Aviation Market? It seems like the only airline operating their routes are IndiGo. Kochi usually gets a lot of flights from many airlines, and they are still listed as destinations, but Air India is only flying BOM, DEL, and LHR right now, and SpiceJet is only flying DXB, even GoFirst is barely flying a small portion of it's route network from COK. What is happening?

RMTAviation wrote:

Does anybody know what's going on in the Indian Aviation Market? It seems like the only airline operating their routes are IndiGo. Kochi usually gets a lot of flights from many airlines, and they are still listed as destinations, but Air India is only flying BOM, DEL, and LHR right now, and SpiceJet is only flying DXB, even GoFirst is barely flying a small portion of it's route network from COK. What is happening?

Thats the case with many such Tier2/3 cities right now. Check Madurai for example, for domestic flights; it receives one sole AI flight from Chennai and the rest all are 6E flights throughout the day. This was once a city with a lot of Spicejet flights.

The reason mainly is a weak Spicejet and to an extent GoFirst, which were the only formidable competitors to 6E.

Other reasons are higher fares (along with fare caps) , due to record high oil prices. This naturally affects price sensitive travellers and thus the VFR market segment to such smaller tier2/3 markets. Also, on top of that, none would want to go head-on with 6E in such market conditions. So airlines have redeployed capacity to more high yielding city-pairs and to more premium tourist markets.

Even on some important trunk routes like Bengaluru-Chennai or Hyderbad-Chennai, there is just barely one flight of another airline with rest all being of 6E, which is so strange.

The non-6E airlines seem to be happy to concentrate their capacity out of BOM/DEL, since these markets can sustain higher fares and also being slot constrained, gives 6E much less room to attack the other airlines.

So for the near future, basically any Indian domestic travel will have to connect though BOM/DEL unless Indigo? That's sad to see then, also explains why COK only has only 1-2 destinations from SpiceJet, Go First, Vistara, Air India, AirAsia India, etc.

pune wrote:

Air India Employees quarters given to Adani and they are moving to Bombay HC to protest the same -

https://hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com ... n/90913483

These are the same people or almost 90% of them who voted for the BJP in the center.

What a play they did, give Air India to Tatas and then give the employees quarters to Adani, soon most of the employees would be fired adding to the record joblessness we have in India.

Where does this article talk about giving quarters to Adani, link or attribution please?

Best, Subramanian

RMTAviation wrote:

So for the near future, basically any Indian domestic travel will have to connect though BOM/DEL unless Indigo? That's sad to see then, also explains why COK only has only 1-2 destinations from SpiceJet, Go First, Vistara, Air India, AirAsia India, etc.

Not really. Its just that 6E has more flights than the others and this can be attributed to their (over) capacity. After all they need to operate their 300 odd aircraft somewhere.

On a recent trip to India, I couldn't help observing the large number of 6E planes simply sunning on the tarmac in airports like BOM and HYD. I'm sure they have a huge excess in capacity and this will definitely come back to bite them.

And they still have over 300 A321 Neos in order!

DIJKKIJK wrote:

RMTAviation wrote:

So for the near future, basically any Indian domestic travel will have to connect though BOM/DEL unless Indigo? That's sad to see then, also explains why COK only has only 1-2 destinations from SpiceJet, Go First, Vistara, Air India, AirAsia India, etc.

Not really. Its just that 6E has more flights than the others and this can be attributed to their (over) capacity. After all they need to operate their 300 odd aircraft somewhere.

On a recent trip to India, I couldn't help observing the large number of 6E planes simply sunning on the tarmac in airports like BOM and HYD. I'm sure they have a huge excess in capacity and this will definitely come back to bite them.

And they still have over 300 A321 Neos in order!

India has over 1.3 billion people, and as they are rapidly developing/urbanizing, more and more people will be in the air. Although 300 might seem like a lot compared to other airlines in India, considering the amount of people and future growth that will occur, the 1000ish total commercial airplanes in India only has like 10-20% of the capacity of other less populated population centers, such as America, Europe, China, Australia, Middle Easter, etc.

After the pandemic recovery, IndiGo will be making billions with their 700 aircraft, while the other airlines are going to struggle with capacity. It may bite in the near term due to the ongoing world crisis, but long term, IndiGo has the brightest future of any airline in India in my opinion.

Looks like Air India has loaded nonstop BLR-TLV 2x weekly in June, have not seen any announcements yet. Is this special/seasonal flight?
AI 137 BLR 15.35 - TLV 19.20
AI 136 TLV 22.55 - BLR 07.55+1

RMTAviation wrote:

India has over 1.3 billion people, and as they are rapidly developing/urbanizing, more and more people will be in the air. Although 300 might seem like a lot compared to other airlines in India, considering the amount of people and future growth that will occur, the 1000ish total commercial airplanes in India only has like 10-20% of the capacity of other less populated population centers, such as America, Europe, China, Australia, Middle Easter, etc.

After the pandemic recovery, IndiGo will be making billions with their 700 aircraft, while the other airlines are going to struggle with capacity. It may bite in the near term due to the ongoing world crisis, but long term, IndiGo has the brightest future of any airline in India in my opinion.

We've been hearing all this for a while now.
IndiGo has survived so far largely by pushing everyone else out with their aggressive capacity addition. Their model has worked for them, but whether it will continue is the biggest question.
Don't forget that IndiGo's biggest competition are now the Tatas, and not the clueless babus at the MoCA who have to be reminded everyday that there are airports other than DEL and BOM in India. With AIX and Air Asia under their belt in the LCC sector, the Tatas are likely to do something dramatic. I expect a huge aircraft order from them soon. And then there will be new entrants like Akasa. The LCC scene is going to get a lot more exciting in India, and a lot tougher for IndiGo.

DIJKKIJK wrote:

RMTAviation wrote:

So for the near future, basically any Indian domestic travel will have to connect though BOM/DEL unless Indigo? That's sad to see then, also explains why COK only has only 1-2 destinations from SpiceJet, Go First, Vistara, Air India, AirAsia India, etc.

Not really. Its just that 6E has more flights than the others and this can be attributed to their (over) capacity. After all they need to operate their 300 odd aircraft somewhere.

On a recent trip to India, I couldn't help observing the large number of 6E planes simply sunning on the tarmac in airports like BOM and HYD. I'm sure they have a huge excess in capacity and this will definitely come back to bite them.

And they still have over 300 A321 Neos in order!

How long did you actually observe the IndiGo planes "sunning" on the tarmac? Couldn't they just be in between flights? They arent necessarily doing 14hr utilization right now, but they are on the way there.

DIJKKIJK wrote:

RMTAviation wrote:

India has over 1.3 billion people, and as they are rapidly developing/urbanizing, more and more people will be in the air. Although 300 might seem like a lot compared to other airlines in India, considering the amount of people and future growth that will occur, the 1000ish total commercial airplanes in India only has like 10-20% of the capacity of other less populated population centers, such as America, Europe, China, Australia, Middle Easter, etc.

After the pandemic recovery, IndiGo will be making billions with their 700 aircraft, while the other airlines are going to struggle with capacity. It may bite in the near term due to the ongoing world crisis, but long term, IndiGo has the brightest future of any airline in India in my opinion.

We've been hearing all this for a while now.
IndiGo has survived so far largely by pushing everyone else out with their aggressive capacity addition. Their model has worked for them, but whether it will continue is the biggest question.
Don't forget that IndiGo's biggest competition are now the Tatas, and not the clueless babus at the MoCA who have to be reminded everyday that there are airports other than DEL and BOM in India. With AIX and Air Asia under their belt in the LCC sector, the Tatas are likely to do something dramatic. I expect a huge aircraft order from them soon. And then there will be new entrants like Akasa. The LCC scene is going to get a lot more exciting in India, and a lot tougher for IndiGo.

The way the things are, it could be difficult even for Tatas to dislodge IndiGo. Only another LCC like Akasa may have a chance. IndiGo is the only player on many non-trunk routes, but to their credit they have kept the fares in check so it is not expensive to fly even if they are only player on a route. Indigo realized long time ago (along with Spicejet) to concentrate on cities other than BOM, DEL and BLR.

hohd wrote:

The way the things are, it could be difficult even for Tatas to dislodge IndiGo. Only another LCC like Akasa may have a chance. IndiGo is the only player on many non-trunk routes, but to their credit they have kept the fares in check so it is not expensive to fly even if they are only player on a route. Indigo realized long time ago (along with Spicejet) to concentrate on cities other than BOM, DEL and BLR.

I wouldn't write off the Tatas and their AIX+Air Asia. Unlike Akasa they actually exist.

AIX is running international routes profitably and by integrating Air Asia's domestic routes, they can come up with a real challenge to IndiGo.

Like I said before, there's definitely going to be a big single-aisle aircraft order.

What are the odds that PNQ will get international flights now that airlines like SQ, CX, MH ans QR are getting newer efficient narrow bodies?

hohd wrote:

DIJKKIJK wrote:

RMTAviation wrote:

India has over 1.3 billion people, and as they are rapidly developing/urbanizing, more and more people will be in the air. Although 300 might seem like a lot compared to other airlines in India, considering the amount of people and future growth that will occur, the 1000ish total commercial airplanes in India only has like 10-20% of the capacity of other less populated population centers, such as America, Europe, China, Australia, Middle Easter, etc.

After the pandemic recovery, IndiGo will be making billions with their 700 aircraft, while the other airlines are going to struggle with capacity. It may bite in the near term due to the ongoing world crisis, but long term, IndiGo has the brightest future of any airline in India in my opinion.

We've been hearing all this for a while now.
IndiGo has survived so far largely by pushing everyone else out with their aggressive capacity addition. Their model has worked for them, but whether it will continue is the biggest question.
Don't forget that IndiGo's biggest competition are now the Tatas, and not the clueless babus at the MoCA who have to be reminded everyday that there are airports other than DEL and BOM in India. With AIX and Air Asia under their belt in the LCC sector, the Tatas are likely to do something dramatic. I expect a huge aircraft order from them soon. And then there will be new entrants like Akasa. The LCC scene is going to get a lot more exciting in India, and a lot tougher for IndiGo.

The way the things are, it could be difficult even for Tatas to dislodge IndiGo. Only another LCC like Akasa may have a chance. IndiGo is the only player on many non-trunk routes, but to their credit they have kept the fares in check so it is not expensive to fly even if they are only player on a route. Indigo realized long time ago (along with Spicejet) to concentrate on cities other than BOM, DEL and BLR.

India doesn't need competition on such routes to keep their prices low. It's either low airfare or looking at alternatives like train, or not traveling at all. IndiGo has allowed many people who couldn't previously afford to fly, to fly. They must be doing something right, their planes always look clean and I hear very few complaints about them, compared to the other Indian Airlines.

SkyEye350 wrote:

What are the odds that PNQ will get international flights now that airlines like SQ, CX, MH ans QR are getting newer efficient narrow bodies?

This requires bilateral changes, for unknown reason MH Govt has not been proactive in getting PNQ as point of call for foreign carriers.

blrBird wrote:

SkyEye350 wrote:

What are the odds that PNQ will get international flights now that airlines like SQ, CX, MH ans QR are getting newer efficient narrow bodies?

This requires bilateral changes, for unknown reason MH Govt has not been proactive in getting PNQ as point of call for foreign carriers.

PNQ does not have immigration facilities at the moment, right?

blrBird wrote:

SkyEye350 wrote:

What are the odds that PNQ will get international flights now that airlines like SQ, CX, MH ans QR are getting newer efficient narrow bodies?

This requires bilateral changes, for unknown reason MH Govt has not been proactive in getting PNQ as point of call for foreign carriers.

RMTAviation wrote:

PNQ does not have immigration facilities at the moment, right?

According to this article SG operates PNQ-DXB replacing PNQ-SHJ from Mar 16.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/p ... 53447.html

I am pretty sure PNQ's had international flights before. 9W used to have a flight to AUH as part of the Etihad alliance although I am not sure if they had DXB as well at the same time. They had at least announced a PNQ-SIN (2017-18is but don't hold me to it - too lazy to dig out) and I know for a fact that in the 2007 time frame IC used to have a SHJ-PNQ I think on a A300.

RMTAviation wrote:

PNQ does not have immigration facilities at the moment, right?

PNQ has immigration facilities.

VTORD wrote:

I am pretty sure PNQ's had international flights before. 9W used to have a flight to AUH as part of the Etihad alliance although I am not sure if they had DXB as well at the same time. They had at least announced a PNQ-SIN (2017-18is but don't hold me to it - too lazy to dig out) and I know for a fact that in the 2007 time frame IC used to have a SHJ-PNQ I think on a A300.

IIRC, there was an LH flight to PNQ some years back.

BuildingMyBento wrote:

VTORD wrote:

I am pretty sure PNQ's had international flights before. 9W used to have a flight to AUH as part of the Etihad alliance although I am not sure if they had DXB as well at the same time. They had at least announced a PNQ-SIN (2017-18is but don't hold me to it - too lazy to dig out) and I know for a fact that in the 2007 time frame IC used to have a SHJ-PNQ I think on a A300.

IIRC, there was an LH flight to PNQ some years back.

LH is the only foregin carrier to have access to PNQ, not sure when they will resume this route.

CX: Resumes limited India Operations
BOM - 4th May 2022
DEL - 6th May 2022

BuildingMyBento wrote:

VTORD wrote:

I am pretty sure PNQ's had international flights before. 9W used to have a flight to AUH as part of the Etihad alliance although I am not sure if they had DXB as well at the same time. They had at least announced a PNQ-SIN (2017-18is but don't hold me to it - too lazy to dig out) and I know for a fact that in the 2007 time frame IC used to have a SHJ-PNQ I think on a A300.

IIRC, there was an LH flight to PNQ some years back.

Not LH but one of their subsidiaries PrivatAir used to fly to PNQ. They flew 737-800s with a refueling halt at OTP.

It gained notoriety as the worst long haul flight on earth.

At its height, in terms of frequencies, Pune handled a daily flight to Abu Dhabi and Singapore from Jet Airways, daily flight to Dubai from Spicejet and a 3 weekly flight to Dubai from Air India Express.

Currently only Spicejet is operating their Dubai flight. I’m hoping Vistara decides to take up the Pune-Singapore route (in conjunction with Singapore Airlines). There may even be hope for a Pune-Doha/Dubai from IndiGo (provided there are enough bilateral rights)

BuildingMyBento wrote:

IIRC, there was an LH flight to PNQ some years back.

Ah Yes! The Privat Air flight, thanks for reminding me about this one.

atal17 wrote:

At its height, in terms of frequencies, Pune handled a daily flight to Abu Dhabi and Singapore from Jet Airways, daily flight to Dubai from Spicejet and a 3 weekly flight to Dubai from Air India Express.

Currently only Spicejet is operating their Dubai flight. I’m hoping Vistara decides to take up the Pune-Singapore route (in conjunction with Singapore Airlines). There may even be hope for a Pune-Doha/Dubai from IndiGo (provided there are enough bilateral rights)

+1 on the Vistara. Wasn't aware of the AIX flight.
I would think QR has to have considered PNQ on a narrow body. G9, EY, FZ are all candidates for a PNQ flight IMHO.

Any predictions for new airlines into COK? My guesses are BA for LHR-COK (since the Air India Flight is doing very well), IST-COK (Turkish), FRA-COK (Lufthansa) BKK-COK (Thai). Also more domestic services from Air India & Spicejet.

Air Canada suspends Vancouver to Delhi flights from June to September.

Does Air India fly to Vancouver ?