Qatar Airways has won the annual SkyTrax airline award for the best Economy Class in the world, which means a lot in these tough economic times when passengers are increasingly moving to the back of the plane from the front.


Qatar Airways recently revamped its Economy Class meal service using a more environment friendly, upmarket, appetising and stylish way.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar clearly has his priorities well targeted, summing up his airline's approach

“Most airlines invest heavily in developing their premium cabins and, while we continue to do this, Qatar Airways strives to innovate in Economy Class ensuring our high standards are maintained and passenger expectations are exceeded worldwide.”

Etihad Airways won the prize for the best Business Class, narrowly beating Singapore Airlines, who won the prize for best First Class. Virgin Atlantic won the prize for best Premium Economy Class, a high in demand travel class nowadays

Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Asiana Airlines, Qatar Airways and Emirates won the top five spots for "Airline of the Year 2009" respectively.

View the full results here.

Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, is set to overhaul the schedule of its flights to India and provide increased long haul connectivity and better frequency. Etihad is also streamlining its services to key destinations in response to changing demands and will now operate all Indian flights as early-morning departures effective March 30, 2009.

Currently Etihad has flights to six destinations in India; Chennai, Kochi (Cochin), Kozhikode (Calicut), Mumbai, New Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum).

With the new schedule, Etihad flights from Thiruvananthapuram will now additionally connect to long haul destinations like Canada and New York, Chennai to Milan, Frankfurt and Moscow, Kochi to New York, London, Europe and Jordan, Kozhikode to the Middle East including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar. Mumbai and New Delhi will connect better to key destinations in Europe and the Mediterranean region.

Jet Airways procured ten ultra-luxuriously appointed Boeing 777-300ERs for its ambitious international expansion. It even won awards for its international first class, featuring private suites.

Now those plans are in tatters, and Jet has abandoned its international ambitions, at least for the foreseeable future. Recently TravelBizMonitor reported

Jet Airways, has dropped its expansion plan, especially plans of expanding overseas informed a top official source of the airline. “We have dropped plans for overseas expansion for the time being. Now our focus will be on consolidation. In the domestic markets also, we are reducing capacity. We are also going slow on the acquisition of new aircraft,” said the source. As part of their cost-cutting plan, Jet Airways may also resort to leasing out their fleet.

Jet Airways/Turkish THY/Gulf Air
Boeing 777-300ER seat map.
The "may lease out its fleet" is already an "is leasing out its fleet". Turkish Airlines THY is already reaping the benefit of the three 777s it has leased from Jet. THY has been enjoying unprecedented success with its 777, and a possible fourth Jet 777 is rumoured expected to join THY soon.

Now, Business Traveller and Air Transport Intelligence are reporting, Bahrain based, Gulf Air is expected to lease four Jet Airways Boeing 777-300ERs, which it will introduce on routes including London Heathrow from March.

Gulf Air chief executive Bjorn Naf has said the carrier would take all four 312-seat 777s this year, and lease them for around three years. While Naf declined to identify the source of the aircraft, it is certainly Jet Airways. Gulf Air has already leased two Airbus A330s from Jet Airways, which has also been actively seeking to lease out its 777-300ERs to generate desperately needed cash.

The 777s would potentially serve as a replacement for a few of Gulf Air's current A340-300s.

It is unclear whether the aircraft will be "wet leased" i.e. along with the crew, as in the case of Turkish THY, or a "dry" aircraft only lease.

Jet Airways has seven Boeing 777-300ERs and nine Airbus A330-200s left in its fleet after the first round of leases to Gulf and THY. After this Gulf Air deal, it will have only three 777s left in its fleet. That will surely require some more route and capacity rationalisation by Jet on its existing international operations. Talks with Oman Air for lease of Jet Airways aircraft, are also expected to fructify very soon, and passengers in India can expect to bid adieu to Jet Airways from the international skies.

In a repeat of THY, Gulf Air’s premium passengers are in for a treat, as Jet’s product includes fully flat beds in business class and private suites in first. (View a photo gallery of the premium classes)

After years of watching its rivals Emirates, Etihad and Qatar, expand their fleets with superior cabin aircraft, which forced a further contraction at Gulf Air, the airline will now be able to mount a serious challenge.

In addition to the Bahrain - London Heathrow route, Gulf Air is considering using the 777s on Bahrain - Bangkok and Bahrain - Kuala Lumpur routes. The 777s will also afford Gulf Air the possibility of serving the US east coast.

Incidentally, today is Makar Sankranti, a festival that signifies the beginning of the harvest season for the farmers of Indian Sub-Continent, and the only Hindu festival celebrated by the solar calendar. All other festivals are by the lunar calendar. Happy Sankranti to all Bangalore Aviation readers.

On its 15th anniversary, the Airbus A330 is getting a major birthday gift, and from none other, than its major competitor, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Thanks to the 2 year delay on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, airlines who had previously ordered the aircraft, are rushing to fill the gap with the Airbus A330.

Qantas which has placed firm orders for 65 Dreamliners with options for an additional 50, has leased six A330's for its low cost subsidiary JetStar. Ironically, Qantas is funding the lease with compensation it is receiving from Boeing as liquidated damages towards the delay in delivery.

The story is being repeated by other major Dreamliner customers, like Singapore Airlines and Etihad Airways who are rushing A330s in to their fleets to fill the gap.

Two weeks ago, December 30, marked the 15th anniversay of the first A330 to be delivered. In 1993, Airbus delivered the first A330-300 to Air Inter, registered F-GMDB. The aircraft, construction number 037 test registration F-WWKE, is now with Brussels Airlines as OO-SFN accumulating a total of more than 50,000 flight hours.

There are some 250 A30-300s in service today, with more than 130 firmly-ordered aircraft still to be delivered.

A growing proportion of the A330-300 fleet is now employed on extended-distance regional routes, such as those linking Middle East destinations with European capital cities. Similar flight lengths characterise the segments flown between Australia and Asia or from Europe to North America.

In 2009, Singapore Airlines, Etihad, Gulf Air, Oman Air, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Aeroflot, Finnair and Swiss will receive delivery.

Airbus reported completion of the largest civil aircraft deal of the year, a 51-plane order from Abu Dhabi based Etihad Airways worth over $10 billion.

The order includes 6 A380 superjumbo, 25 A350XWB and 20 single-aisle A320 aircraft.

The order was first announced at the Farnborough air show in July. However, Etihad's financial woes, and speculation of a merger with fellow United Arab Emirates carrier, Dubai based Emirates, led to months of uncertainty on the order.

The order was finally confirmed last week and made it into the official Airbus backlog, as reported by Reuters on Friday.

Airbus will produce some composite parts in the emirate as part of an industrial deal with Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala Development.

Airbus has net orders of 756 aircraft this year, against a target of 850 plane sales in 2008.

Rival, Boeing, which also won a 45-plane order from Etihad this year, has reported 646 gross orders and 640 net orders for 2008 as of Dec. 2.

Airbus also said it had delivered 46 planes in November, bringing deliveries so far this year to 437, against a targeted 470 deliveries in 2008.