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Air India, Vistara, SpiceJet & IndiGo chiefs meet Scindia

Chiefs of Air India, Vistara, and SpiceJet on yesterday 7 held a meeting with Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia in the national capital. In a social media post, the Office of the Minister said representatives from Air India, Vistara, SpiceJet, and IndiGo thanked him for the recent amendment in the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) whereby aircraft equipment have been exempted from moratorium under the IBC.

The meeting was attended by Air India Managing Director and CEO Campbell Wilson, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan, SpiceJet Chairman and Managing Director Ajay Singh, and IndiGo’s Principal Advisor R K Singh. The Minister’s office shared pictures of the meeting on X.

“Representatives from four airlines including Air India, Spice Jet, Vistara and IndiGo met Hon’ble Minister Sh@JM_Scindia Ji and thanked him for the recent legal amendment pertaining to the issuing of a notification under Section 14 (3) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 exempting aircraft equipment covered under CTC from application of moratorium. ” The decision is a big relief for aircraft lessors as it is expected to create a favourable environment in India by reducing their risk and allowing them to repossess their aircraft,” as per the post on X.

The amendment came against the backdrop of the insolvency proceedings being initiated against Go First. Since the airline’s assets were under the IBC moratorium, aircraft lessors were unable to take back their planes. (Source: PTI)

Delhi HC to hear Go First’s lessors’ plea on October 19

The Delhi High Court will hear aircraft leasing companies’ plea for deregistration of Go First aircraft on October 19.
With a favourable notification from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the lessors pressed for the release of the planes leased to Go First during a hearing on Thursday.

However, counsels of the airline’s committee of creditors and resolution professional sought time to examine the notification that was issued on Wednesday evening. The court accepted the plea and posted the matter for hearing on October 19.

The notification disallows moratorium for leased aircraft and that has come as a shot in the arm for lessors who are trying to recover the planes leased to Go First.

While lessors are seeking de-registration, Go First is expected to oppose the plea.

A senior Go First executive said the notification will not impact the airline. “Notifications are always prospective – as a rule,” he said.

 

Air India on monthly hiring spree; pace to continue for 2023: CEO

Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said that the airline is hiring 550 cabin crew members and 50 pilots every month. Wilson further informed that Air India expects to have six wide-body A350 planes in its fleet by the end of this year, reports Mint.

Tata Group has put in place various measures to turn around the fortunes of the loss-making carrier, including placing the largest order for 470 planes and expanding international operations, since it took over the reins of the airline from the Indian Government.

“In the case of cabin crew members, it is about ten times and in the case of pilots, it is about five times on an annual rate of the pre-privatised airline,” he told news agency PTI in an interview in the national capital.

According to him, this pace of hiring will continue for most of this year, taper off by the end of this year and accelerate again towards the end of 2024. “It (hiring pace) will match the induction of aircraft”.

Against the backdrop of the process of merging Air India Express and AirAsia India (now known as AIX Connect), and Vistara with Air India, Wilson said they are also sensitive to the consolidation that is subject to regulatory approvals.
On what could be the staff strength putting all the four airlines together, Wilson said it would be around 20,000, excluding those being hired as part of the growth strategy.

Earlier this month, Wilson told employees that Air India and Air India Express have hired more than 3,900 people, including over 500 pilots and 2,400 cabin crew members, since the start of this year.

“The first narrow-body aircraft will come around July or August. The first wide-body aircraft (A350) will come around October,” Wilson said about the induction plans from the historic order placed for 470 planes earlier this year.
Currently, Air India has 122 planes and is expanding its fleet. The airline expects to have six A350 and eight B777 aircraft by the end of this year. So far, the carrier has taken 9 B777 planes on lease.

In February, Air India announced that it would buy 250 aircraft, including 40 wide-body A350 planes, from European aviation major Airbus and 220 planes from US aircraft maker Boeing under separate deals.

The order comprises 40 Airbus A350s, 20 Boeing 787s and 10 Boeing 777-9s wide-body aircraft as well as 210 Airbus A320/321 Neos and 190 Boeing 737 MAX single-aisle aircraft.

According to the Air India Chief, the true transformation will happen from next year onwards as it will get all the leased aircraft, start retrofitting old aircraft and deliveries from order for 470 planes.

 

Airbus estimates India may need 2,210 planes in 20 years

Airbus estimated that airlines in India will require 2,210 new aircraft over the next 20 years, with small aircraft accounting for 80% of the new deliveries, reports The Hindu.

Sounding upbeat on growth potential, the aviation major in its latest India Market Forecast said the demand would come on the back of passenger traffic in the country growing at 6.2% per annum by 2040, making it the fastest among major economies and way ahead of the global average of 3.9%.

Breant McBratney, Head of Airline Marketing, Airbus India and South Asia, in a presentation on the latest Forecast at Wings India 2022 on Thursday, said 1,770 of the new aircraft were expected to be small, while 440 could be medium and large. In the previous edition of the biennial event, Airbus had pegged the demand for new passenger and cargo aircraft in India by 2038 to be 1,880.
Noting that strong domestic traffic has primarily been the driver of Indian aviation growth, the Airbus forecast said the country had only about one-tenth of the widebody fleet installed in similar markets, depriving homegrown carriers of a larger share of the profitable long-haul routes now dominated by foreign airlines.

“It is time for Indian carriers to unlock the potential of international travel in and out of India, leveraging the country’s demographic, economic and geographic dividends,” said Remi Maillard, President and MD, Airbus India & South Asia. The forecast said that in order to serve the growing aviation industry, India will require an additional 34,000 pilots and 45,000 technicians by 2040.

 

Vistara exploring newer avenues to supplement earnings; aims to have 70 planes by 2023: CEO

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With a “nimble” approach, Vistara is focussing on a leaner cost-structure as well as exploring newer avenues to supplement earnings, its CEO Leslie Thng has said and emphasised that full-service carriers are even more relevant in the current COVID scenario.

The Delhi-based airline, which entered the domestic aviation space in January 2015, aims to have 70 planes in its fleet by 2023.

In an e-mail interaction with PTI, Thng said that full service carriers look to be relevant more in the current scenario due to less density of seats in the cabins.

With the pandemic, there is increased focus on social distancing during air travel.

The airline has been “nimble” in approach, and has always believed that the market is big with space for all players, given the diverse needs of customers. While some temporary adjustments and modifications have been done to its short-term plans, the airline remains focused on its long-term vision of densifying domestic network and expanding globally, he noted.

“We have observed an increase in demand for the premium cabins, even amongst newer customer segments, as they look for greater safety, comfort and social distancing.
“We are at an advantage with our sought-after, highly differentiated product with three cabin classes (business, premium economy and economy), which continues to attract customers across varied segments,” the Vistara chief said. Vistara has a fleet of 46 aircraft.

According to him, the airline has renegotiated various contracts with partners and implemented salary cuts to reduce operating expenditures besides leveraging on opportunities such as commercial cargo, charter flights, and also introducing several ancillary services to generate additional revenues.

“Our overall focus was to achieve and maintain a leaner cost-structure while exploring newer avenues to supplement our earnings,” he pointed out.

The second COVID wave has drastically impacted the aviation sector, and air travel demand, which was on the recovery path, has come down.
“These are truly unprecedented times, and there is no past reference to help estimate a future outlook. Having said that, we will continue to be agile, look at ways to control costs and explore avenues to generate additional revenue by leveraging every viable opportunity we are presented with,” Thng said.

While the airline is working out the delivery schedules of aircraft with Airbus and Boeing, the Vistara chief said, “we expect to receive the remaining four Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft this fiscal along with more from the order we placed with Airbus for A321neo and A320neo aircraft”.

Overall, the airline aims to have 70 aircraft in the fleet by 2023, he said.
Currently, the fleet has 36 Airbus A320s, two A321 neos, six Boeing B737-800NGs, and two B787-9 Dreamliners.

Despite reduction in deployed capacity, Thng said the airline plans operations in such a way that its entire fleet is utilised and continues to be fully functional.

In the wake of the pandemic, the carrier adjusted capacity deployed across its network, reducing from almost 75 per cent of pre-COVID capacity in early March this year to around 25-30 per cent at present.

“From the time that the first nationwide lockdown was imposed last year, we have been pursuing negotiations of several contracts with partners, vendors and lessors. Our partners understand that we are all in this together and have been very supportive of our efforts showing great confidence in Vistara’s future plans and its ability to navigate this crisis,” Thng said.

In 2020, Vistara added two new B 787-9 Dreamliners, two A321 neo and four A320 neos to its fleet while five of its old A320 ceo planes were returned to the lessors.

Vistara was born to be a “global airline” from India, and since launching international operations in 2019, it has been pursuing its ambitions of expanding the footprint in the global market while expanding its domestic network, Thng said.

In the last fiscal which ended on March 31, 2021, the airline launched six new international destinations, under travel bubble agreements, including London, Dhaka, Doha, Frankfurt, Sharjah and Male.

“We continue to review more such opportunities to operate similar flights to other destinations,” he said.
The airline is set to launch its flights from Delhi to Tokyo from June 16, under the India-Japan air bubble pact.

“We certainly wish the circumstances were better and more conducive to the launch of our operations in Japan. However, we feel that this route is still commercially viable and promising. It is also an important cargo route, which is a significant revenue stream, especially amidst the ongoing pandemic,” he said.

According to him, as an important and strong global hub for business and trade, Japan fits the airline’s network strategy very well and it had been part of our expansion plan much before the pandemic struck the world.

In 2019, Vistara had entered into a codeshare agreement with Japan Airlines.

Emphasising that Vistara is a long-term player in the domestic aviation space, he said the airline remains committed to protecting all jobs at the airline. The situation is highly dynamic and the airline will continue to closely monitor the market, he noted.

“We are evidently going through one of the toughest times in the history of the aviation industry. Given the constantly evolving situation, it is very difficult to estimate the timing of a full recovery at the moment,” Thng said. (Source: PTI)