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Comment, Did You Know, & Airlines
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Airlines, Airports & Hotels
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Hotels, Travel Advisories, Travel News
Greg
James, General Manager
I
have just returned from India, courtesy of the Taj
Group of Hotels, who treated us like kings. India is definitely
the new "it" destination and with the government making moves
to de-regulate the airservices industry, the country is shaping up for
massive growth in the travel sector in the forthcoming decade.
It
appears that low cost carriers (LCC's) in India are fueling the growth,
the bus industry seems to be suffering the most. But it is not just
the LCC's who are ordering planes, Boeing and Airbus are the beneficiaries
with billions being spent on committed orders in the next few years
from Indian carriers. Air India just committed an order for 50 jets
worth USD 6.9 Billion with Boeing.
Unfortunately,
the pressure on hotel rooms and seats is too much to bare and demand
far exceeds supply, allowing hoteliers to charge in US Dollars, not
Rupees, at exhorbidant prices.
At
the recent PATA conference in Macau last week, it was reported that
foreign investors are committing signifcant resources to India. This
can only be good news for those of us who have already invested in India.
What
are your thoughts? Are you for it or against it? Let us know at
communique@bti.com.sg
and we will publish the results in our next issue.
Yours
faithfully as always,
Tried finding a great rate on a hotel room at
the last minute lately? Good luck. Analysts say thanks
to a strengthening economy, business travelers are hitting the road
again in droves. And just as demand seems to be picking up, the supply
of rooms remains tight.
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NYC gets nonstop link to South Pacific:
Beginning July 5, Air Tahiti Nui adds nonstop service between New York
JFK and Papette on Tahiti. The airline – the national carrier
of French Polynesia – will operate three daily flights on the
route. The flights will be the first-ever regularly scheduled nonstop
connection between New York and Tahiti. Continuing one-stop, same-plane
service is available to Sydney, Australia.
Airline innovator dies: The man
who is credited with creating the earliest version of computerized airline
reservations has died, The Washington Post (free registration) reported
Saturday. The system that Philip Fellows created for Eastern Airlines
was a major technological advance from earlier systems of tracking reservations
on paper files. Fellows was an early supporter of computer technology.
"How many little bits of information do you suppose are floating
around this company?" he reportedly told a journalist in the 1970s.
"Millions? And how many managers need bits of the same information
at the same time?" Fellows was 83 when he died of congestive heart
failure last month at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington.
How would you like to have a jet fly on your schedule?
How would you like to have a jet fly on your schedule?
Possibly as early as next year, fliers could have an option for "on-demand"
airline service. That's the concept behind technology entrepreneur Ed
Iacobucci's DayJet, which would use new Very Light Jet (VLJ) aircraft.
The jets seat four passengers and cost half as much to operate as current
small jets, USA TODAY reports. DayJet plans to couple that jet technology
with modern computer databases that can crunch numbers and determine
the most efficient ways to route the jets, allowing them to pick up
customers flying between any combination of cities. Iacobucci says DayJet
would be halfway between a private jet charter service and a full-fledged
airline. Here's how it would work: Customers would visit DayJet's Web
site and pick which of the company's cities they want to fly between,
including dates and time parameters (such as "depart no earlier
than" and "arrive no later than.") If one of the company's
planes is available to fly the route, customers would get a confirmation
– though not all seats would have to be sold for a flight to get
the green light. Fares, Iacobucci says, would cost slightly more than
the full-fare coach prices currently offered on the same routes, and
the fare would remain the same regardless of how many seats were sold
on any given flight. DayJet hopes to launch in mid-2006, and says it
will target medium-sized cities such as Asheville, N.C. How reliable
would it be to find flights on your preferred route? The system "can't
reject (flight requests) too often, or people won't come back,"
Iacobucci says.
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Cathay Pacific
Cathay Pacific Airways announced it will add more services
to Frankfurt and Denpasar, Bali. Three
new weekly services to Frankfurt will depart Hong Kong every Tuesday,
Thursday and Saturday arriving in Germany the following morning. The
return flights will depart every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, arriving
in Hong Kong lunchtime the following day. It will be served with a two-class
Airbus 340-300.
Four additional weekly flights to Denpasar will depart Hong Kong Tuesday,
Thursday, Saturday and Sunday and return early morning on Monday, Wednesday,
Friday and Sunday. The return flights will connect seamlessly with afternoon
departures from Hong Kong to Canada, the United States, Korea and Japan.
The existing daily Denpasar flights connect with onward flights to Europe.
Continental Airlines
From July 15 2005, pending US Government approval, Continental will
utilize a Boeing 737-700 aircraft to fly an approximately five-hour
flight from Houston to Cali, Colombia
with seating for 12 passengers in First Class and 112 in Economy. The
flight will depart Houston at 3:45 p.m., arriving in Cali at 8:45 p.m.
The return flight will depart Cali at 9:10 a.m., arriving in Houston
at 2:05 p.m. Flights will be timed conveniently to allow connections
in Houston for passengers arriving from/departing for Newark Liberty
International Airport in the New York City area.
Emirates
Passengers travelling on one of Emirates’ ‘ice’ equipped
aircraft can choose from over 1000 No. 1 pop hits that have topped the
UK charts since records were first launched. The
range runs the entire gamut from the first-ever U.K. No. 1 hit single
‘Here in my Heart’ sung by Al Martino which smashed the
chart on 14th November 1952 to the 1000th No.1 hit the classic Elvis
Presley double-A-side featuring ‘I got Stung’ & ‘One
Night’ which did the same on 5th February 2005. Significantly,
this was Elvis’ twentieth UK No.1 hit and marked the double occasion
the single was released on vinyl in the U.K.
Emirates’
inimitable inflight entertainment system, ‘ice’ (information,
communication, entertainment) offers over 500 channels of movies, TV
entertainment, audio and games. It also offers passengers the ability
to communicate via SMS and email, direct from their seatback personal
video systems. With
‘ice’, passengers have the unique ability to select and
listen to any of the UK No.1 hits ever – a feature which has proved
very popular with passengers.
Please
note that Emirates and Singapore Airlines have ceased their
Frequent Flyer Partnership; as such you can
no longer earn Skyward miles while flying Singapore Airlines.
Emirates
has a new destination: Alexandria City, Egypt.
Daily Flights are available with a stop over in Dubai.
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