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When the <keyword id="1700843" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="singapore-airlines-group" source="Orion">Singapore Airlines Group</keyword> (SIA) released its operating statistics for December 2022, it revealed that it carried almost 12 per cent more passengers compared with a month ago and four times more than a year ago. Its two carriers, SIA and Scoot, carried a total of 2.7 million passengers in December. For the entire year, it carried a total of 20.7 million passengers, a jump of 900 per cent from 2021. The airline cited the relaxation of travel restrictions in Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan for boosting the demand for air travel and supporting a recovery in those markets. Though impressive, the passenger numbers are still 76 per cent of December 2019's figure of 3.54 million passengers carried. SIA's passenger load factor (PLF) in December 2022 came in at 89.7 per cent during the month -- 3.8 percentage points more compared with a month ago and 43.2 per centage points more year-on-year. The airline noted that this is the highest monthly PLF in the SIA's history, full-service carrier, SIA, and low-cost airline, Scoot posted record monthly PLFs of 89.1 per cent and 91.6 per cent respectively. PLF for December 2019 was 87.6 per cent. However, it should be noted that PLF is a function of the number of planes an airline has in service. During this period where there's a global shortage of capacity, some <keyword id="44023" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="airlines" source="Orion">airlines</keyword> under utilise their planes either to keep airfares high or because they do not have enough resources to maximize the use of their fleet. According to fleet data from ch-aviation.com, at the moment, SIA has 36 inactive aircraft between its two main airline brands. Among the aircraft sitting on the ground are 15 Boeing 777ERs, two Airbus A350s, two A380s, and two 787-8s. With increasing competition in the coming year and with China's reopening from COVID-19 lockdowns, airlines in Northeast Asia are expected to put more capacity in the air which would result in supply putting pressure on prices. SIA is expected to do the same to contend for market share. Already in December, Scoot resumed flights to Zhengzhou, China in December 2022, while SIA restarted fortnightly passenger services from Singapore to Beijing on 30 December 2022. While the China market is still slowly recovering, SIA has been expanding its capacity in India, an important market, since the middle of last year. SIA has already resumed flights to the following South Asian cities at frequencies matching or exceeding pre-C levels: Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Dubai, Hyderabad, Kathmandu, Kochi, Kolkata, and Mumbai. To underline the strategic importance of the Indian market to SIA, it made a commitment to continue to invest in the market late last year. On November 29, the airline announced that it will be converting its 49 per cent stake in Vistara into a 20 per cent stake in the new <keyword id="2573" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="air-india" source="Orion">Air India</keyword> Group, with the additional USD250 million used to acquire another 5 per cent. SIA has also agreed to inject up to another USD615 million after the merger is completed, (expected by March 2024), should the new airline group require additional funds from its shareholders to fund its restructuring and expansion. The actual amount will depend on factors including the progress of the enlarged Air India's business plan, and its access to other funding options. The airline said in a statement, "Through this transaction, SIA will reinforce its partnership with Tata and immediately acquire a strategic stake in an entity that is four to five times larger in scale compared to Vistara. The merger would bolster SIA's presence in India, strengthen its multi-hub strategy, and allow it to continue participating directly in a large and fast-growing aviation market." When Tata Sons agreed to buy Air India, the acquisition was completed a year ago on January 27, Tata was expected to consolidate its airline assets which meant it was likely to merge Vistara with Air India. SIA could have stepped away from its investment in the Indian market and sold its 49 per cent stake in Vistara. However, it decided to take a minority stake in a larger airline, and here are some of the possible reasons. First of all, the new Air India Group will be a much bigger player in the Indian aviation market. Its four airlines will have a 26 per cent market share based on domestic seat capacity and 21 per cent of international seat capacity in the current quarter, based on OAG data. India as a market and a source of travelers is of strategic importance to both SIA as well as Singapore overall. SIA will in time be able to increase its connectivity to Indian destinations as well as serve Indian passengers on international routes using Changi Airport as a transit point. This could open up attractive destinations in other parts of Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, North Asia, and the west coast of America to Indian passengers. With the massive Terminal 5 in Changi opening in the middle of the next decade, any additional passenger churn will be vital to ensure the airport expansion fulfills its promise. India is among the top three aviation markets in the world and poised to double passenger traffic over the next 10 years supported by rising income levels and ongoing investments in its aviation infrastructure. It is projected to exceed 300 million airline passengers by 2027. However, India also remains underserved with low international seats per capita, signifying significant growth potential. Another factor that SIA would have considered is that the CEO of the new Air India group is a trusted 25-year veteran of the company before he joined the Indian airline in the middle of last year. Campbell Wilson, a New Zealander, was previously chief executive of Scoot and rotated through various roles at SIA in countries like Japan, Canada, and Hong Kong, and was senior vice president of sales and marketing for SIA. As quoted by Fortune, he said in a letter to employees on the one-year anniversary of the completion of Tata's takeover of Air India, "Taken together, the progress over the last 12 months has been nothing short of stunning, even if so much of what we have been working on has been behind the scenes, building platforms and capabilities so that our future ambitions can take flight. There is of course much more that needs to be done, and everyone internally and externally - is hungry for us to do it." SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/hindenburg-ignores-indian-legal-processes-adani-group-on-the-firms-allegations/articleshow/97431153.cms">Hindenburg ignores Indian legal processes: Adani Group on the firm's allegations</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/finance-ministry-to-stick-to-privatisation-of-already-announced-cpses-next-fiscal/articleshow/97412473.cms">Finance Ministry to stick to privatisation of already announced CPSEs next fiscal</a>

Why Singapore Airlines is investing in Air India?

Mumbai, Apr 14 () With the central government extending the lockdown to May 3 and subsequently the suspension of all commercial passenger services also till then, domestic airlines have again decided not to refund the customers in cash for their cancelled flights and instead offer them rescheduling of tickets for a later date without any additional fee.India had imposed a 21-day lockdown from March 25 to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Consequently, all domestic and international commercial passenger flights were suspended for this time period.However, most of the airlines had been taking bookings except national carrier Air India for domestic flights for the period beyond April 14.After Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the extension of lockdown till May 3, the aviation regulator DGCA issued a circular stating all international as well as domestic flights will remain suspended during the lockdown."Following orders from the Ministry of Civil Aviation issued to all airlines, we have extended the suspension of our operations until May 3, 2020."We are in the process of cancelling the affected bookings and we will offer customers free of charge rescheduling to another date until December 31, 2020," a Vistara spokesperson told in statement.The customer, however, will have to pay the fare difference, if any, at the time of rebooking, the airline said.A GoAir spokesperson said that it has already "factored in" these type of scenario and that the airline will review its earlier scheme of providing rescheduling free of cost at a later date while protecting their existing bookings for one year.The airline had on Monday announced that it was extending the "Protect Your PNR" scheme till April 30, 2020.Aviation consultancy Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation had last week termed the sale of tickets without a clarity on lockdown as "unfair to consumers"."The decision to allow opening of advance bookings from April 14 without a decision on lifting of the lockdown and likely structure of the transition period post the lockdown needs to be immediately reviewed as this is unfair to consumers," Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) said in a statement.Citing examples of erstwhile Kingfisher Airlines and now-defunct Jet Airways, CAPA said that the closure of these two carriers has "already resulted in massive losses to passengers as refunds couldn't be processed resulting in crores of losses to passengers".It may be mentioned here that the then customers of the erstwhile Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways could not recover their money which the two airlines had amassed on account of advance bookings only after their going belly up.CAPA in its March 18 report had stated that amid COVID-19 and in the absence of government support "several Indian airlines may shut down operations by May or June due to a lack of cash."Announcing that all its flights are cancelled till May 3, IndiGo said, it is in the process of cancelling the reservations."Your ticket amount is protected in the form of credit shell in the PNR, which can be utilised within one year of the issued date." Gurugram-based spiceJet also said the amount from the cancelled ticket will be maintained in a credit shell."We are cancelling the reservation of those who booked tickets for travel till May 3, 2020. Upon cancellation your entire amount will be maintained in credit shell and the same may be used for fresh bookings and travel till February 28, 2021, for the same passenger," it said. IAS MR

Airlines decline refund to customers for cancelled tickets as lockdown extended

New Delhi, Apr 7 ()el agents body on Tuesday alleged that majority of IATA-member airlines have disabled the refunding mechanism on the Global Distribution Services System (GDS-system) for agents and urged the civil aviation ministry to direct the airlines to repay customers for cancelled flights due to 21-day lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus infection. Most of the airlines, including domestic players, have refused to refund customers whose flights either got cancelled due to the suspension of all commercial passenger flights in the wake of 21-day lockdown, or because of the visa and travel restrictions by various countries or they themselves cancelled tickets on account of pandemic concerns. The airlines are forcing customers to accept travel vouchers with their validity, in some cases, as long as one year.Not only this, domestic airlines except the national carrier Air India, have started taking bookings from April 15 onwards. The three-week lockdown will remain in force till April 14, as of now."Due to the travel restrictions placed by governments across the world, customers/travellers want to cancel their bookings and claim back refunds for tickets booked by them. Travellers want their blocked money back for the unutilised travel, which shall not be undertaken by them," Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) Vice President Jay Bhatia said in a statement.The travel agents/tour operators have paid in full to the airlines for all tickets that have been issued, till date."Our member agents are wanting to process the refunds for the tickets issued by them for their customers," TAAI said."But majority of IATA member airlines have disabled the refunding mechanism on the GDS systems for agents, who are now required to manually process refunds through Refund Authority with IATA, whereby the airlines are being non-committal on the date and amount of repayment of airfare," the association alleged.A GDS is a computer network system that allows travel agencies and websites to book tickets on any airline for a passenger. While all full-service carriers avail GDS system for selling their tickets, a few budget airlines also use this platform."Post-April 15, if things come to normalcy, the refund process, if authorised by the airlines, may take from 15 days to at least three months, depending on theairline and how the situation across the globe remains, Bhatia said.Currently, most of the airlines are not giving waivers on the cancellation charges and also not refunding in cash. They are only giving credit vouchers, which are valid for 365 days and a couple of them are offering credit vouchers for up to 760 days, favouring the passenger, whereby name change will not be permitted, TAAI said.Further, according to the Association, additional funds of the agents are blocked with the airlines which have been paid by way of advances in float accounts of low-cost carriers.According to TAAI, most low-cost carriers too are not refunding the airfares and are creating a credit shell favouring the passenger, to be used for future dates.TAAI said it has raised strong objections on this issue with the airlines along with IATA and has asked the Ministry to direct the airlines to refund all refund money," it said."We are working closely wA and IATA on daily basis to find a suitable solution, to resolve the refund issue, in the interest of the passenger, along with support from Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH), said Bhatia. IAS MR

Airlines not refunding for cancelled flights due to lockdown, allege travel agents

Overall hiring activity in India declined by 18 per cent in March, with travel and airlines, hospitality and retail industries witnessing a massive 56 per cent drop in offering jobs as compared to March last year, leading job portal <keyword id="218117" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Naukri-com">Naukri.com</keyword> said on Tuesday. The retail sector saw 50 per cent drop in hiring, followed by auto/ancillary (38 per cent), pharma (26 per cent), insurance (11 per cent), accounting/finance (10 per cent), IT-software (9 per cent) and BFSI (9 per cent), according to the ‘Naukri JobSpeak Index' for March 2020. According to <keyword id="2554121" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Pawan-Goyal">Pawan Goyal</keyword>, Chief Business Officer at Naukri.com, the hiring activity for the first 20 days on March 2020 saw only a 5 per cent decline. "However, due to the nationwide lockdown, there was a substantial drop in recruitment activity in the last 10 days, which resulted in overall drop of 18 per cent in hiring," said Goyal. The hiring activity showed early signs of slowdown starting from January where the index grew by only 5.75 per cent, followed by no growth in February. The job market across cities registered a dip in hiring activity. The decline was led by metros, wherein Delhi declined by 26 per cent, followed by Chennai and Hyderabad at 24 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively. In Delhi/NCR, pharma industry saw a dip in hiring by 66 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively. Recruitment activities across all experience levels saw a negative growth. The demand for professionals in hospitality (63 per cent), banking (28 per cent), accounting (23 per cent) and IT-Hardware (22 per cent) sectors marked a substantial negative growth in the Capital. Overall, there was an across the board decline in hiring activity at experience levels as well with senior experience bands (over 13 years of experience) witnessing the sharpest decline of 29 per cent while the entry-level experience band (0 to 7 years) saw a decline of 16 per cent. Some of the key industries like IT, BPO/ITES, BFSI and accounting/finance that form a significant base of hiring activity in India within the white collar segment have shown a lesser decline during these unprecedented times. As compared to the overall ‘JobSpeak' index decline of 18 per cent during March 2020, the hiring activity in IT-software industry declined by 9 per cent, IT-hardware by 7 per cent, accounting/finance by 10 per cent, BFSI by 9 per cent and BPO/ITES by 1 per cent. New jobs for professionals in the hotel/restaurants, ticketing/travel/airlines and marketing/advertising/MR/PR sectors witnessed a dip of 51 per cent, 48 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively. Functional roles in HR/administration (29 per cent), banking/insurance (23 per cent), sales/business development (20 per cent) and IT-software (16 per cent) also witnessed a decline. "It is a great time for jobseekers to upskill themselves be leveraging e-learning," said Goyal.

Indian hiring declines by 18% in March - in airlines and hospitality it's down by 56%

Last week, the <keyword id="6356662" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="singapore" source="Orion">Singapore</keyword> Tourism Board (STB) announced visitor numbers to the city-state which topped expectations with over 2.9 million arrivals in the first three months of this year. This is 62 per cent of 2019's first quarter figure of the 4.7 million people who visited Singapore in the first quarter of 2019. A total of 193,230 of these came from India which is about 3.5 times more than the 54,530 who arrived in 2022. Indian residents are the fourth largest source of tourist arrivals in the first quarter after Indonesians (523,300), Malaysian (278,910) and Australians (265,730). Americans made up the fifth largest group of visitors by country of origin at 168,960. China which was the largest source of tourists for Singapore with over 3.75 million visitors in 2019 have yet to fully return to Singapore and made up the ninth largest group of tourists in Q1 with only 124,560 coming to Singapore. In 2019, based on figures from China's National Bureau of Statistics, Chinese tourists made nearly 170 million trips abroad. Although China has lifted travel restrictions, cumbersome travel processes targeted at Chinese residents by countries like South Korea and Japan earlier this year dampened the enthusiasm for outboard travel. This has been exacerbated by delays in passport renewals and visa applications as well as the inability of Chinese airlines to mount the same number of flights as before COVID. Based on data from Alibaba-owned travel booking site Fliggy, during February, international flights out of China are at less than 10 per cent of 2019 levels. Furthermore, the travel habits of Chinese citizens have been changed by three years of COVID-19 restrictions with many now contented to explore the vast and varied attractions in their own country. "The Chinese tourists we will welcome this year and in the coming years are very different from those who came before," Wolfgang Georg Arlt, founder and chief executive of COTRI (Chinese Outbound Tourism Research Institute), was quoted by CBNC as saying at ITB Berlin, the world's largest tourism trade fair. COTRI is an independent consulting company based in Germany. In China as elsewhere, years of pandemic-induced lockdowns sparked a shift away from major tourist attractions toward "more nature-orientated, more outdoor-orientated tourism," Arlt said. He highlighted the emergence of trends like camping and glamping, as well as family-focused trips. COTRI predicts that Chinese outbound travel will recover to around two-thirds of 2019's figures, with around 110 million overseas trips this year. In the meantime, the Singapore Tourism Board is not waiting for Chinese tourists' return to launch new activities and attractions to boost tourism on the island. To inspire travel to Singapore through TV series and films, STB together with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) announced the launch of an SGD 10 million (USD 7.5 million) Singapore On-screen Fund. The fund aims to support international media and entertainment (M&amp;E) partners in marketing Singapore through television and film shows aimed at an international audience. The Singapore On-screen Fund will support selected projects by key M&amp;E companies, which must be set in Singapore and launched before the first quarter of 2027. Successful projects will receive funding support of up to 30 per cent of qualifying costs related to featuring Singapore, including production and marketing costs. This is in part inspired by past collaborations which resulted in movies such as "Crazy Rich Asians", the popular K-drama "Little Women (2022) and the HBO sci-fi hit series "Westworld Season 3" (2020). These shows created an international impact and left a positive impression on audiences around the world. Also just announced in April is the return of the Free Singapore Tour which is very popular with Indian tourists as well as those from Australia and Indonesia. The tour was suspended during COVID. This tour is organised by STB together with Changi Airport and is meant for transit passengers at Changi who have a layover period of at least five and a half hours but less than 24 hours. They must also have valid entry visas for Singapore to take part in the tours. The objective of organising these free tours is to entice transit passengers to make Singapore a destination for their next holiday. The original three tours available before COVID - the City Sights Tour, Heritage Tour and Jewel Tour - have been refreshed to include new points of interest. A brand-new Changi Precinct tour will introduce travellers to the interesting sights and sounds of the eastern region surrounding Singapore Changi Airport. Each tour lasts two and a half hours and will be available daily, with plans to progressively increase to nine tours a day. In 2019, over 80,000 passengers went on the Free Singapore Tour. Another exciting development is the stationing of a brand-new Disney Cruise Line ship in Singapore from 2025 for five years. A memorandum of understanding between STB and Disney Cruise Line was announced on March 29. The 208,000 gross-ton ship which will have a passenger capacity of about 6,000 plus a crew strength of 2,300 will be taking passengers for cruises around Southeast Asian countries, home to more than 40 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Disney Cruise Line ship has the potential to add millions of local and foreign cruise passengers during the five-year period, including fly-cruise passengers who arrive in Singapore by air. It is also expected to bring about significant spillover benefits for the wider economy. "We look forward to welcoming the magic of Disney Cruise Line to Singapore in 2025," said Keith Tan, Chief Executive of STB. "This is an important milestone for STB and reflects Disney Cruise Line's strong confidence in Singapore and Southeast Asia. The new Disney cruise ship will be an attraction itself and is expected to boost the tourism sector in Singapore for many years to come."

You Searched For "indian airlines in lockdown" and got 5 results

Why Singapore Airlines is investing in Air India?

ANI

Airlines decline refund to customers for cancelled tickets as lockdown extended

PTI

Airlines not refunding for cancelled flights due to lockdown, allege travel agents

PTI

Indian hiring declines by 18% in March - in airlines and hospitality it's down by 56%

IANS

As Indian visitors surge, Singapore tourist arrivals now at two-thirds pre-Covid levels

ANI

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