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Aviation company offers hourly-basis business, tourism charters

A month after beginning helicopter joy rides on the Sabarmati riverfront, AeroTrans Services Pvt Ltd — a 2.5-year-old aviation company acquired by the owners of a pharmaceutical firm in Ahmedabad — is now offering business and tourism charters from Gujarat that range between Rs 45,000 per hour to Rs 1.75 lakh per hour. “We are looking at a full-fledged aviation charter business and our range includes single piston engine aircraft, jet aircraft and helicopters. We are looking to serve people and companies who would want to charter a helicopter or aircraft from Gujarat. We are getting bookings to go to Gir Sanctuary, Dahej, Somnath, Dwarka, Palitana and Dhordo in Kutch. Both families and corporates hire our aircraft,” said Rajiv Gandhi, who is the chairman of AeroTrans and managing director and founder of the Ahmedabad-based pharmaceutical firm Hester Biosciences. The speed of the aircraft ranges from 230 kmph to 650 kmph. Aviation companies in Gujarat have been upbeat after the state government recently reduced VAT (Value Added Tax) on Aviation Turbine Fuel from the earlier 30 per cent to the present 5 per cent. “We were earlier operating charters out of Pune and Mumbai. We have shifted one helicopter to Ahmedabad. We have shifted our operational base partly from Maharashtra to Gujarat. We have stationed only two helicopters in Pune and all the rest have been shifted to Gujarat, which is now our focus area,” Gandhi said. The company has a fleet of six aeroplanes and three helicopters of which five are fully-owned by the company and the rest four are managed by AeroTrans for others who own the aircraft. “We acquired Pune-based Oxford Enterprises which chartered a single helicopter. My daughter Priya Gandhi and I acquired it 2.5 years ago and changed the name to AeroTrans Services,” he added. When asked why an owner of a pharmaceutical firm bought an aviation company, Gandhi said, “I was always keen on aviation and I used to be thrilled with small aircraft. In this case, the business is driven more out of passion.” Gandhi has invested Rs 35-40 crore in AeroTrans.

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Australia to allow foreign tourists by Feb-end after two-year lockout

Australia may open its borders to foreign tourists by February end after a hiatus of almost two years due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic, local media reports said. The Herald Sun reported Sunday that the government could announce it as soon as Monday following a meeting of the national security committee. A government minister told a TV news channel that the government plans to open the borders to overseas tourists as soon as possible. “We are getting ready to open as soon as we can,” home affairs minister Karen Andrews told ABC TV in an interview. “We don’t have all the information we need to be able to take the decision, but we are very close.” The hospitality sector in Australia has been hard-hit due to Covid-induced border restrictions and lockdowns. Prior to the pandemic, the tourism industry generated over $84.9 billion in annual revenue, according to Tourism Australia. The annual revenue was down by 41% in 2020-2021, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. The industry employs a significant 5% of the Australian workforce. Back-to-back emergence of variants of concern delayed the opening of international borders and even witnessed local travel restrictions. Australia and New Zealand had to suspend the trans-Tasman travel bubble following the emergence of the highly contagious Delta variant, which drove a disastrous Covid wave in India. The variant prompted the cancellation of major events in Australia while the residents remained less confident about booking travel in advance, affecting domestic tourism as well.

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Srinagar airport to remain shut on weekends after 5 pm

The Srinagar airport will not be having any evening flights for three days a week for the next two months. Evening flights to and fro Srinagar airport in Jammu and Kashmir have been suspended for the aforementioned span of time. According to officials of the Airports Authority of India, the runway is goingt go through Polymer Modified Emulsion work for the months of February and March. The entire runway is going to go through this renovation and repair work so as to become stronger for flight operations, and also to control its wear and tear. According to Kuldeep Singh, Director, Airport Authority of India, Srinagar Airport, the work has been planned for Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays in these two months. Singh said, "We will ensure that the flight disruption is reduced to minimum by working only from 5 PM to 6 AM during the night time. The runway will be available and the flights will be operated from 6 AM to 5 PM." The flights that were scheduled for after 5 pm on the last three days of the week are now preponed before 5 pm. Srinagar is a major airport for Jammu and Kashmir, and according to Director Singh, passengers already have the information about their respective airlines. All passengers of the affected flights have been requested to confirm their revised departure times if they have booked their flights for this period of time.

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Direct international flights to Bali resume for the first time in two years

Direct international flights to Bali have resumed for the first time in two years as Indonesia opens the resort island to foreign travelers from all countries, but mandatory quarantine remains in place for all visitors. Officials had said in October that Bali would welcome foreign arrivals from 19 countries that meet World Health Organization criteria, such as having their COVID-19 cases under control. But there were no direct international flights to Bali until Thursday, when Garuda Indonesia operated its first such flight in two years from Tokyo. Singapore Airlines will introduce a regular direct route to and from Denpasar in Bali starting Feb. 16, said Taufan Yudhistira, the public relations manager at Bali’s international airport. Fully vaccinated travellers need to quarantine for five days in a hotel or on a liveaboard boat certified by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, and travelers who have received one dose of COVID-19 vaccine must quarantine for seven days. Indonesia reported 27,197 new coronavirus infections and 38 deaths on Thursday in the latest 24-hour period. The country has seen more than 4.4 million total cases since the pandemic began. The country’s latest surge in cases, driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant, has mostly been concentrated in Jakarta, but in recent days infections have “increased significantly” in Java and Bali, said Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, the government minister who leads the COVID-19 response in Java and Bali.

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Travel and tourism expected to grow to $8.6 trillion in 2022

Travel and tourism are expected to return to almost pre-pandemic levels this year, and a top health official says Europe could be about to enter "a long period of tranquility." Omicron is still raging, but travel is pushing forward. Travel and tourism could generate $8.6 trillion globally this year, according to new research by the World Travel & Tourism Council. That's just 6.4% below pre-pandemic levels. More countries have announced reopening plans. Denmark, whose population has a high 81% vaccination rate, has become the first EU country to lift all Covid-19 restrictions, while Morocco has announced plans to reopen to tourists on February 7. Even cautious New Zealand is gradually opening its doors. Does this mean a return to normal? Europe, for one, could be in store for "a long period of tranquility," Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization's regional director for Europe, said Thursday. Let's hope the rest of the world is in for some tranquility, too.

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Demand for corporate travel returning gradually, says IndiGo

Budget carrier IndiGo, which turned profitable in the December quarter on the back of higher passenger volumes, on Friday said the demand for corporate travel is returning gradually. "We are saw a recovery of almost 70 per cent of the recovery in corporate travel in December. But due to the third wave of the pandemic, we started seeing a drop in this business and it came down to about 25 per cent of the pre-COVID level in the first half of January," IndiGo Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer Sanjay Kumar said during a post-earnings analysts call. "But again we are seeing recovery after the middle of January and we have seen some better numbers coming in. We hope that we will get back to a similar kind of growth very soon in the next few weeks, going forward," he said. IndiGo Whole Time Director and CEO Ronojoy Dutta said that while the airline is going to see a decline in revenue in the March quarter, a recovery is likely to take place in the first quarter of next financial year owing to the rebound in demand. "We are expecting a 10-15 per cent lower capacity deployment in the March quarter over the December quarter. We also anticipate our load factor in the fourth quarter could possibly be weaker than the December quarter," Dutta said. He also noted that IndiGo added capacity in the December quarter to take advantage of the ongoing recovery which helped the airline turn profitable in the quarter. Still there are a lot of headwinds in terms of using capacity. However, it also requires relaxations in restrictions in international operations, Dutta said, adding, "we need a fair amount of capacity to bring our unit cost down". Fuel continued to be a significant headwind, he said. "Our problem is that we are in a high fuel and tax environment". Dutta said that there will always be competition, which is in every industry and which is good for the industry but "to a large part, we focus on ourself and not so much on competition. Our strategy is to run a world class airline". IndiGo on Friday posted a profit after tax of Rs 129.8 crore in the three months ended December 2021. PTI IAS RAM

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