Jet's inaugural New York-Delhi flight takes off
New York: Jet Airways' inaugural flight between New York and New Delhi with 150 passengers aboard took off Sunday from JFK airport after a brief religious ceremony at the departure lounge.This is Jet's third daily service between India and North America."The new flight is an exciting opportunity for us as it opens up another part of America's East Coast," Deepak Oberoi, Jet's regional director (East Coast & South America), told DNA.He added the flight would be convenient for passengers from areas including the eastern part of New York, upstate New York and Connecticut.Gurvinder Singh, an upstate New York businessman, agreed. "I had booked a seat on the inaugural flight two months ago," he said.The Brussels-Delhi leg of the inaugural flight Sunday had all 312 seats booked.Jet had earlier launched flights between Newark (New Jersey) and Mumbai and between Toronto and Chennai.

Deepika is the brand ambassador of Kingfisher
Mumbai: The beautiful model-turned-actor Deepika Padukone is the new brand ambassador of Kingfisher Airlines. The event was held Tuesday at Hilton Towers in Mumbai.Wearing a sizzling red-hot dress, the colour of Kingfisher, Deepika went on stage with billionaire Dr Vijay Mallya. 21-year-old model-turned-actor Deepika is the daughter of former World badminton champion Prakash Padukone."Deepika is the symbol of youth and vibrancy. With her new movie with Shahrukh Khan due for release in one- and-a-half weeks, the Kingfisher Airlines brand will get more mileage," said a source.

Airbus with Air India

Airbus in talks with Air India to sell 12 A380s
New Delhi: Airbus on Tuesday disclosed it was in talks with Air India for selling 10 to 12 A380s, each of which has a list price of $320 million.''In terms of orders placed for passenger aircraft last year and so far in 2007, we have bagged about 70% of them. Kingfisher had earlier ordered five A380s and it certainly won't be the last Indian carrier to do so. My first overseas trip to India is by purpose as it is the most important market,” Enders said.The company, said Airbus (India) president Kiran Rao, has 350 firm orders for aircraft from Indian carriers, with over 65 being placed this year itself. ''Our target is to have a similar market share in the 1,100 new planes we project India would require in next two decades,” he said.In return for huge orders, Airbus Industrie has set up a training service institute in Bangalore and entered into a partnership with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, which builds nearly half of the doors for A320 planes. It will train nearly 1,000 pilots a year at its training centre.

Airport Projects

Indian airport projects likely to be hit: IATA
Latest air transport industry forecast released by International Air Transport Association (IATA) contains some warning signals for India. In its recent airfreight volume forecast for 2011, the premier global body says that the enormous anticipated expansion in India that has fuelled record aircraft orders could be cut short by insufficient airport and air traffic management capacity.This mismatch between demand and capacity seems to be a local phenomenon, for Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s director general & CEO, notes, “Parts of the world are effectively managing infrastructure development to anticipate and meet demand – particularly the Middle East and China.”However, there is good news for India. With 8.3% AAGR, India occupies second slot of the seven Asian countries that feature top ten freight markets. The others are: China (10.8%), India (8.3%), Republic of Korea (8.2%), Vietnam (7.5%), Sri Lanka (6.8%), Pakistan (6.7%) and Malaysia (6.2%).The Middle East, which is exhibiting rapid developments right now, will see the second highest growth at 5%. The fastest growing Middle Eastern markets are expected to be Qatar (6.9%) and Saudi Arabia (6.2%), the agency said.According to the forecast, global air transport industry is expected to handle 36 million tonnes of international freight – 7.5 million tonnes more than in 2006.

Tiger Airways

Tiger Airways launches first service to India
Singapore: Budget carrier Tiger Airways launched its first flight to India and a fifth service to southern China from its Singapore base on Sunday.The Singapore Airlines-backed Tiger broadened its international network with the flight to the southern Indian city of Chennai and the new service to Xiamen."These new routes are a significant opportunity for Tiger Airways to bring affordable travel to Asia's fast growing markets of India and China," said chief executive officer Tony Davis.The Xiamen service seals the carrier's "position as the largest international low fare airline to serve China," Davis said.Tiger Airways is the only budget airline to offer services across the "whole of Asia-Pacific, encompassing China, South-East Asia, India and Australia," he added.