The new domestic departure terminal 1D at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) at New Delhi will commence operations in two phases from April 11 and April 18.

With the exception of Go Air, all airlines from the old departure terminal 1B will move to terminal 1D, along with Kingfisher Airlines who will shift from terminal 1A. Go Air will shift to terminal 1A. State carrier Air India will remain in terminal 1A.

On April 11, only Jet Airways and and its low cost subsidiary Jetlite will move to the new terminal, since they are the dominant private airline at IGIA. A week later, on April 18, after these two airlines would have settled down in the new terminal, the operations of all other airlines from terminal 1B like SpiceJet and IndiGo, along with Kingfisher will be shifted.

To provide for time to shift, the last departure from the old terminals is planned around 22:30 (10.30 pm) local on April 10 and April 17 respectively. The operations will recommence at terminal 1D at 05:00 the following mornings.

IGIA airport operator Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) has taken the help of a team from Munich airport to assist in the shift and also conduct the operational readiness and airport transfer (ORAT).

Qatar Airways launched its Doha Houston daily non-stop service yesterday linking the world’s energy capitals and marking the carrier’s 84th destination. The new route is Qatar Airways' third daily non-stop service to the United States adding to the existing daily services to Washington D.C. and New York City.

Qatar Airways is using its two brand new Boeing 777-200 Long Range (777-200LR) aircraft, received in February on this route. Qatar Airways is placing a lot of faith in its 777-200LRs since two aircraft are required to operate this route on a daily. It has ordered a total of six LR variants and hopefully A7-BBC will join the fleet very soon.

A7-BBA performing QR077 was welcomed after its nearly 17 hour journey at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) with the traditional water cannon salute.

A 259 seat, two-class configuration places emphasis on space. In Business Class, there are 42 fully flat seats with a pitch of up to 78 inches in a 2–2–2 seat configuration. In Economy Class, there are 217 seats with a pitch of up to 34 inches in a 3-3-3 configuration.

Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker receives a proclamation from City of Houston City Controller Annise Parker designating Monday 30 March 2009 as “Qatar Airways Day” during the official arrival ceremony welcoming the inaugural Houston flight.

Images courtesy of Qatar Airways

The three month old stand-off between travel agents and Singapore Airlines on the zero commission issue shows no signs of abating. Both sides have tried to negotiate but remain apart. If anything, the dispute has entrenched both sides in to their respective stands even further.

In the latest move to pressure the Singapore national carrier, Indian travel agents will send one hundred thousand e-mails tomorrow April 1, to the Singapore Prime Minister Mr. Lee Hsien Loong, and flood his e-mail box to draw his attention to the on-going dispute.

IATA Agents Associates of India (IAAI) President Biji Eapen says

"One lakh e-mails will be sent to the Singapore Prime Minister, , by all IATA travel agencies on April 1. And this is not going to be an April Fool joke. We want to make the Prime Minister aware of the issue as well as seek his intervention in resolving the issue,"

"We have made every effort to make Singapore Airlines understand the issue in perspective and restore the agency commission like domestic air-carriers have done, but to no avail, hence the operation,"

In a move to widen the protest, the travel agents also plan to send 5,000 e-mails every day to the Indian operations heads of the 14 overseas airlines operating in India, who have resorted to zero per cent commission.

I am not sure, and I invite comments from experienced e-mail system administrators, will one hundred thousand e-mails be seen as a "Denial of Service" (DOS) attack, especially tomorrow when the Win32.Conficker worm is expected to go off, putting everyone on maximum alert.

For a background and all articles on this issue click here.

Singapore Airlines has put out a release and FAQ giving their side of the dispute.

A JetLite flight to Bangalore was delayed by 45 minutes and boarding on several flights had to be suspended for 10 minutes on Sunday evening after a passenger Saptarishi Basu, complained that his laptop had gone missing from the security hold.

Around 5 pm, Basu, who was to board the JetLite flight to Bangalore, went in for security check. On completion of his check, he found his laptop missing on the delivery side of the X-ray machine. He immediately lodged a complaint with the nearby CISF official.

5 pm is a peak travel hour, and there were over 400 passengers departing to Chennai and Delhi undergoing security checks. The CISF suspended all boardings, and started checking the CCTV footage to find the missing laptop. S.B. Hari, a Chennai bound SpiceJet passenger had mistakenly picked up Basu's laptop, thinking it as his own, since both passengers carried the same model.

The JetLite flight took off 45 minutes behind schedule. All other flights, for which boarding had been suspended, took off on time. Basu though, was not on the JetLite flight, since he had to complete formalities. He was accommodated on an Air India flight leaving at 7.55 pm.

This does raise some interesting questions to which I request comments.

• How do you protect and identify your laptop either during your travels on in public areas ?
• JetLite is a low cost carrier, and Air India a full service one. Who paid for the difference in fare ? If Basu or any of the airlines did, is it not unfair ? After all, it is Hari who picked up the wrong laptop. Should he not pay for the delays ?
  

Firstly, many thanks to all the Bangalore Aviation readers who participated in last week's trivia question - Which is the longest scheduled commercial airline flight ?

For the purpose of definition I placed four criteria for an ultra long-haul non-stop flight:

1. Operated by a commercial airliner with a definite schedule
2. No intermediate stop-over point within its scheduled duration
3. More than 12,000 km in route length
4. Over 15 hours of scheduled flying time

The correct answer is Singapore Airline's flight SQ21 from Newark to Singapore, 16,600km (10,314 miles, 8,963 nm), 18 hours 40 minutes scheduled flying time. Congratulations to Dominik from Poland for the right answer.

Incidentally Singapore Airline's SQ22 from Singapore to Newark follows a "great circle" route of 15,700 km, while SQ21 follows a "polar" route which is 16,600 km.

The second longest route is also by Singapore Airlines. SQ37 (formerly SQ19) from Los Angeles to Singapore takes 18 hours 10 minutes to complete the 14,033 km (8,771 mile, 7,577 nm) trip.

Both these flights are operated by the Airbus A340-500.

Delta operates India's longest flight, the world's fourth longest from Mumbai to Atlanta using the Boeing 777LR. DL185 takes 17 hours to cover the 13,739 km (8,537 mile, 7,395nm) journey. This is also the longest currently scheduled flight by the Boeing 777LR. For a full list click here.

On 10 December 2005, a Boeing 777-200LR completed the world's longest non-stop passenger flight, travelling eastwards from Hong Kong to London a 21,602 km (13,422 miles) in roughly 22 hours and 40 minutes. This was not a scheduled flight and although the airplane seats 301, there were only 27 passengers aboard this flight, I guess the balance weight being made up by fuel.

This is not, however, the record for longest time staying aloft for an airliner. This record is held by the 1939 Berlin-New York non stop flight of a reciprocal piston powered Focke-Wulf Fw 200 built for Lufthansa (flight time 24 hours and 56 minutes). Now that would be a very painful flight.

Image courtesy Singapore Airlines

A host of new and updated services to and from India announced this week.

Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) will launch new flights to Bangalore, Lucknow, and Kozhikode (Calicut) over the next few days. The airline has commenced operating three flights a week to Lucknow; two flights a week to Bangalore from today, March 30, 2009 and four flights a week to Kozhikode, starting tomorrow March 31, 2009.

Israel's national air-carrier El Al Israel Airlines is planning to enhance connectivity between India and Israel by launching twice a week Tel Aviv-New Delhi service from summer. At present El Al Airlines operates three flights a week from Mumbai to Tel Aviv and has a commercial tie-up with national air-carrier Air India and private airline Jet Airways for onward connections to other Indian cities. A spokesman for the airline indicated that El Al was considering Bangalore as a destination, but at a later stage.

Air India has introduced a daily Delhi-Chicago flight via Frankfurt using the new 342 seat Boeing 777-300ER in a three class configuration. The Delhi-Chicago flight will actually originate from Hyderabad (the GMR-UPA connection at work?), while passengers from Kolkata and Amritsar will complete through check-in, immigration and customs formalities at their respective airports.

Turkish Airlines, has increased its seat capacity (measured in ASKs) by 24 per cent and frequencies by 12 per cent from its new summer schedule which went in to effect yesterday. New Delhi, Bombay and Chicago flights are now upgraded to a daily operation. For more details of the changes click here.

Two deliveries of "first" of aircraft model occurred on March 27th.

Airbus delivered the first A330-300 to Finnair, out of an order for eight. Powered by General Electric CF6-80E1 engines, the new aircraft is in a two class configuration 42 Business, 229 Economy for a total seating for 271 passengers.

On the same day, Boeing delivered the first 777 Freighter to Emirates SkyCargo via Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE). Coincidentally, Dubai Aerospace Enterprise Capital, the leasing arm of DAE, also has a total of eight 777 Freighters on order.

Images courtesy and copyright of Airbus and Boeing