When your travel agent strikes
BANGKOK, 7 May 2013: In the event of an airline related labour disrupt or strike, the best piece of advice I could find was: Get friendly with your travel agent.
That’s the recommendation from a popular travel website but it was not reckoning on travel agencies going on strike as well.
They did all 3,000 of them in India or 4,000 depending on the media your read this morning.
Etihad seals deal of lifetime
April 25, 2013 by AFP
Filed under Aviation, News, South Asia
MUMBAI, 25 April 2013: India’s Jet Airways said Wednesday it had agreed to sell a minority stake in the carrier to Etihad in a US$380-million deal giving the Abu-Dhabi-based airline access to the vast Indian market.
The agreement would be the first overseas investment in an existing Indian carrier since the government eased restrictions to allow foreign airlines to buy up to 49% of Indian carriers last September.
Debt-laden Jet said in a statement the company would sell 27 million shares to Etihad, at 754.74 rupees (US$13.7) per share — representing a 32% premium to the airline’s last traded share price.
India opens first major theme park
April 18, 2013 by AFP
Filed under News, South Asia
MUMBAI, 18 April 2013: India’s most elaborate theme park opens this week with special-effect Hindu gods and Bollywood-themed rides, aiming to tap a thirst for family entertainment among the country’s rising middle-class.
Adlabs Imagica, which cost about US$294 million to create, opens its doors to the public, Thursday, at a site between the western cities of Mumbai and Pune, with capacity for 10,000 to 15,000 visitors a day.
In the style of a Disney or Universal Studios park, the new tourist site hopes to fill a gap in the Indian leisure market and comes with twists to appeal to the domestic audience.
India’s aviation faces hurdles
March 27, 2013 by AFP
Filed under Aviation, News, South Asia
NEW DELHI, 27 March 2013: India’s highly competitive aviation sector still has to overcome “huge” obstacles to get onto a sound financial footing, the industry’s global chief said on Tuesday.
India’s combined passenger numbers shrank by 2.1% last year compared with global growth of 4%, according to industry figures.
The country of 1.2 billion people, most of whom still travel using the vast rail network, “is a great potential market”, said International Air Transport Association (IATA) chief Tony Tyler.
India’s tourist security questioned
March 21, 2013 by AFP
Filed under News, Southeast Asia
AGRA, INDIA, 21 March 2013: Two men appeared in an Indian court Wednesday accused of harassing a British tourist who jumped off her hotel balcony fearing a sex attack, with their lawyer saying they denied the charges.
The manager of the three-star Hotel Agra Mahal, Sachin Chauhan, and another member of staff were produced before the local magistrate in the northern city of Agra and were remanded in judicial custody for 14 days.
Prakash Narayan Sharma, lawyer for the hotel manager, told AFP his client would entre a “not guilty” plea before the court on Thursday and apply for bail.
Violence threatens India’s tourism
March 20, 2013 by AFP
Filed under News, South Asia
NEW DELHI, 20 March 2013: Danish tourist Judith Jensen has a long list of don’ts to help her feel safe during her holiday in India.
She won’t hail a taxi off the street, she won’t stay in an obscure hotel and she won’t go out after dark — all decisions made in response to the growing reporting of sexual crime in the country.
“I have read and heard so much about rape in India that now I feel this persistent sense of danger,” Jensen, 42, told AFP as she walked through a popular market in downtown Delhi.
India curbs travel
NEW DELHI, 6 June 2012: India has ordered an austerity drive banning government meetings in five-star hotels, curbing foreign travel and halting the creation of new posts to help rein in a bulging deficit.
It could eventually reduce visits to Thailand a popular destination for Indian corporate incentive tours, weddings and lavish events, although the ban is limited to government departments and state enterprises.
There will also be a ban on buying new vehicles, the finance ministry said in an official directive to all ministries, issued hours after figures showed that India had posted its worst economic growth in nine years.
Italian tourists kidnapped in India
BHUBANESWAR, India, March 18, 2012 (AFP) – Maoist rebels have kidnapped two Italian tourists in eastern India, police said Sunday, in what is believed to be the first abduction of foreigners by the left-wing militants.
The Italians were seized in scenic, poverty-stricken Orissa state last Wednesday along with two Indians who were freed early Sunday, police said.
The Indians said the Maoists had pledged not to hurt the foreigners, an Italian Foreign Office spokesman in Rome said.
Kingfisher halts overseas flights
MUMBAI, 15 March 2012: India’s beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines said Wednesday it had curtailed its overseas flights to avoid losing further cash as it struggles to keep flying amid mounting operational difficulties.
“We would like to confirm that we are curtailing our wide-body overseas operations that are bleeding heavily,” said spokesman Prakash Mirpuri in a statement.
The debt-laden carrier has returned a leased Airbus A330-200, a mid-sized long-haul airliner, but it did not say how many flights would be affected.
Kingfisher, which is already facing severe disruption due to strikes by pilots over unpaid wages, flies to eight overseas destinations, including London, Dubai and Hong Kong.
Later in the day, India’s director general of civil aviation E.K. Bharat Bhushan said the situation was “causing distress to the travelling public and a matter of concern”.
Kingfisher cancels more flights
MUMBAI, 13 March 2012: India’s cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines cancelled nearly a fifth of its flights Monday, including at least one international route, after its staff staged a strike over unpaid wages.
Kingfisher said its schedule was also affected after the company was suspended last week by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) from a global payments system.
The airline issued a statement blaming “employee agitation on delayed salaries” and the IATA suspension for the cancellations, which it said would hit close to 20% of its already reduced service.
