Whining about AC dropping India flights

[Kip Powick]

Air Canada is ending all flights to India so it can boost its service to China, a move called shocking and short-sighted by Indo-Canadian business leaders in Toronto.

With Canadian politicians hyping the need to boost trade and other ties with India – whose red-hot economy is growing at a rate second only to that of China – Air Canada's decision to suspend service to that country is baffling, said Kam Rathee, president of the Canada-India Business Council.

He sent a letter of protest to Air Canada president Montie Brewer urging him to reconsider.

"It's a lousy decision. It hurts in our efforts to promote Canada and Canadian companies in India. It's a huge setback to the Canada-India business momentum, because Air Canada was a very visible symbol of co-operation and business between the two countries. Now it's snapped without notice.".

"India might think we're talking out of both sides of our mouth, which is disheartening. On the one hand, we talk about trade promotion and yet at the same time, our national airline does this. Actions speak louder than words," added Rathee, who has not received a response from Brewer.

Air Canada will discontinue daily service to New Delhi as of May 1, spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick confirmed.

"The route didn't meet our financial performance objectives. ... Because of the seasonal nature of the Delhi traffic it was difficult to fill the flights on a year-round basis," he said. Demand was high in winter but fell significantly in summer.

Air Canada has redeployed the 767 aircraft servicing India to China, "which is a very lucrative market for us," Fitzpatrick said. "There's a lot of demand there. There's a lot of business that gets conducted with China."

Air Canada will offer five daily non-stops from Toronto to Shanghai and Beijing, up from the current three, starting this summer.

Atul Ahuja, spokesperson for the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, noted that Canada will now be the only G8 nation that does not have a national airline servicing India. Yet provincial governments are actively courting Indian trade and federal trade minister David Emerson is planning a visit next month.

Ahuja and Rathee, along with 150 other Ontario business and academic leaders, were part of Premier Dalton McGuinty's recent trade mission to India and Pakistan.

Air Canada will still service India through its Star Alliance partners, Lufthansa and Swiss, but passengers will need to switch planes in Zurich or Frankfurt before flying on to New Delhi or Mumbai. Other carriers such as Air France, British Airways and Air India also offer alternatives, though none are non-stop.

Meanwhile, privately owned Indian airlines such as Air Sahara and Jet Airways may offer India-Canada flights within two years, Rathee said.

[dagger]

The Star actually put this on the front page, if you can believe.

[J.O.]

I can't imagine that AC would be dropping that route if there was money to be made. They need to stop whining and put their money where their mouth is.

[Thebean]

I can't imagine that AC would be dropping that route if there was money to be made. They need to stop whining and put their money where their mouth is.

Exactly. Use it or lose.

[BoomerPete]

It's all right ... that market niche will be filled again quite shortly, and I think the clientele will appreciate the product on offer.

Pete

[conehead]

By what carrier?

[J.O.]

Hey Pete. I'm not casting aspersions, but I've heard that TC is holding up the approval of that carrier's foreign op's spec. Any word about that on your side of the planet?

[Guest rattler]

It's all right ... that market niche will be filled again quite shortly, and I think the clientele will appreciate the product on offer.

Pete

So far only Air India and Air Canada are named in the Bilateral Agreements.

[Dropzone]

Doesn't everyone know we're still a government subsidized airline....?

[conehead]

Oh, I see. Jet Airways has ordered 10 A330's, and 10 777's. That should add some lift. Who's going to fly them?

[BoomerPete]

Hey Pete. I'm not casting aspersions, but I've heard that TC is holding up the approval of that carrier's foreign op's spec. Any word about that on your side of the planet?

My understanding is that the issues with the FAA (questions on the company's source of funding directed to the Indian Finance Ministry and a trademark issue with a US carrier named Jet) have been resolved in fact, if not yet officially. I don't know, but I would assume that these would be the only issues regarding issuance of a TC ops spec as well. I don't have any other info on that side of things as I'm not in the office very often, but I do know some of the commercial plan and fleet delivery schedule.

Operations to 6 North American destinations are planned. Primary destinations are likely to be EWR, ORD and YYZ in the east and LAX, SFO and eventually (I hope!) YVR in the west. Flights will begin this summer and the route network will grow as aircraft are delivered over the next 12-18 months.

Within that time frame the widebody fleet will expand to a total 22 A330s/B777s with an additional 10 options for each in hand, but so far not exercised. 10 B787-8s have been confirmed for delivery from 2011 onwards in addition to a fair number of B737NGs which are currently arriving at a rate of a couple a month (I think).

Cheers,

Pete

[Vsplat]

This whole diatribe by the consumer group begs the question: if the route is so vital and AC is such a lifeline, then why is it not oversold?

This reminds me of the PEI debacle. You want an aircraft at your disposal, when or if you want to use it. But should the ticket price rise to cover the true costs of operating the route when the seats are half empty, which it must to avoid the competition bureau's involvement, then the airline is gouging.

If the Indo-Canada business community is so certain the route is vital, then why do they not simply arrange for an agent to charter a block of seats on every flight and sell them themselves? I'm sure they could arrange competitive pricing for those who need the service and protect the carrier during the market lulls.

Before you call this a crazy idea, understand that the current article, as I understand it, expects the carrier to do exactly that, only eat the cost of moving the unsold seats themselves. Goose/ gander.....

Vs

[conehead]

Within that time frame the widebody fleet will expand to a total 22 A330s/B777s with an additional 10 options for each in hand, but so far not exercised. 10 B787-8s have been confirmed for delivery from 2011 onwards in addition to a fair number of B737NGs which are currently arriving at a rate of a couple a month (I think).

Pete; at a conservative guesstimate, that's over 300 new pilots to man the widebodies alone. Is there enough qualified pilots available?

[deicer]

I can't imagine that AC would be dropping that route if there was money to be made. They need to stop whining and put their money where their mouth is.

Air India has been in and out of YYZ over the years because they can't make a go of it,,,,

Why should AC be on the hook?

Iceman

[Guest rattler]

You may want to review your history unless you are talking about prior to 1985. But I do agree, if they want the service then they have to pony up enough passengers for the airline to turn a profit.

Air India Flight 182 - Kanishka was blown up mid-flight on 23 June 1985 by a bomb. The flight was on the first leg on its Montreal-London-Delhi-Bombay (Mumbai) flight when it exploded off the coast of Ireland. The plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. All 307 passengers and 22 crew on board died. After this incident Air-India suspended all services to Canada,which resumed after 20 years in 2005.

[Cargo Agent]

You may want to review your history unless you are talking about prior to 1985. But I do agree, if they want the service then they have to pony up enough passengers for the airline to turn a profit.

You may want to review your history. I worked AI flights in YYZ before 2000, and since I didn't start at AC until 86 it couldn't have been prior to 1985.

[Kip Powick]

Rattler... I think the misinformation of your quote can be found in many locations on the Internet and I think whoever started the statement was trying to equate the 20 year anniversary of the downing of Air India to the final results, or almost final results, of the trial.

Wikipedia and others have the same sentence...word for word...but..... the quote below is from the Archives of the an Indian based newspaper, (business section) that was published concurrent with the 20 year anniversary....

Air India resumes flights to Toronto

India's flag carrier Air-India launched three flights a week from Delhi to Birmingham and Toronto via Amritsar starting May 15,2005.

The latest service marks commencement of services to Toronto after eight years, the airline said in a statement.

The flights will be operated with state-of-the-art, fly-by-wire Boeing 777-222 ER aircraft on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

That would make it the date of ceasing ops to Canada as 1997...yes??

[Guest rattler]

You may want to review your history. I worked AI flights in YYZ before 2000, and since I didn't start at AC until 86 it couldn't have been prior to 1985.

Cargo Agent

Quite right, led astray . Now that I think about it I do remember that Air India applied for a licence in June 94, was granted it and then it was suspended in July 94 by the CTA due to non compliance and that does support your on again, off again statement.\ For some time after the bombings there was no Air India service out of Canada and we could not even accept cargo for interlining to India but my tired old brain can not remember how long that lasted.

Sorry. Rattler

[BoomerPete]

Pete;  at a conservative guesstimate, that's over 300 new pilots to man the widebodies alone.  Is there enough qualified pilots available?

The company's crewing plan shows 11 crews per aircraft which for 22 wide-bodies comes to a total of 484 pilots. There will likely be about a 50/50 split between Indians and expats in the left seat with a smaller number of expat F/O's as well.

But, this is just the tip of the iceberg in India. Last year 138 aircraft were delivered to India, but only 230 new commercial pilot licences were issued.

Expat pilots pose many problems

Manju V

[ 4 Jan, 2007 0050hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

MUMBAI: The accent from the cockpit is distinctly Yankee though the aircraft is Indian. But, as frequent flyers whose ears have got accustomed to a spectrum of foreign-sounding brogues will tell you, this is no aberration.

Expatriate pilots are increasingly a part of India's aviation industry and, indeed, poised to outnumber their Indian counterparts in coming years.

The fact that foreign pilots don't come cheap doesn't seem to deter the industry. Despite a Rs 4.5-to-Rs 5.5 lakh monthly salary (Indian pilots earn 10% less), a week's mandatory leave every month, and short breaks every six to 12 months, their number is rising steeply, not just in the airline industry but also with charter/private aircraft owners.

In Air India Express, Paramount Airways and Go Air, expat pilots constitute 50% of the workforce. The reason for this increase is the burgeoning demand for pilots and the skewed demand-supply situation in India.

Statistics from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) show that 230 commercial pilot licences were issued till October 2006 while 138 aircraft were newly registered in the same period.

"An aircraft like, say, a Boeing 777-200 LR would need about 11 pilots for optimum aircraft utilisation, while a four-seater Cessna 172 could do with two pilots," says an airline official. Accordingly, it can be safely estimated that the 138 aircraft would need at least 1,380 pilots.

The situation has been like this for some time now. In 2005, 162 pilot licences were issued in India while 99 aircraft were registered, while in 2004 the number of licences issued was 159 as against the 60 aircraft registered.

Civil aviation minister Praful Patel recently spoke of a demand for 2,500 pilots in the near future. With the present rate, India would take at least 7 to 10 years to meet that figure. Says Sean Butler, director, sales and marketing, Parc Aviation, a leading flight crew leasing company: "Analysts estimate that there will be a need for 8,000 pilots by 2020."

The airline official says that the 280 aircraft with airlines in India today are estimated to grow to over 500 by 2011.

"So it can be safely estimated that 2011 will see foreign pilots being a majority workforce in many airlines," he declares, adding that almost all start-up carriers will have to depend on foreign crews.

Interestingly, foreign pilots also fill the gap that the highly-in-demand Indian pilots refuse to. "With so many Boeings and Airbuses around, Indian pilots don't want to fly ATRs, and so we have foreign pilots fill in the vacancies," says Capt G Gopinath of Air Deccan.

Getting pilots for ATRs was so difficult that last year DGCA relaxed its rule and allowed an all-foreign crew to pilot turbo props. So now you have pilots from the Philippines, Russia and Ireland flying into airports in Hubli, Bellary, and Rajamundhry.

Those owning private aircraft too have begun recruiting foreign pilots in full force."Gautam Singhania bought his 8-seater Challenger-604, the first in India, four months ago. Bombardier had to arrange for a foreign pilot to fly it," says a source.

But expat pilots also bring their set of problems. "A pilot hired from say, Brazil, is sent to Boeing's base in Seattle for checks. In the interim, if he gets an offer from another airline, he moves out and we lose our revenue," says a top airline official.

Other hiccups include communication problems due to some expats' poor comprehension of English, and the fact of their perks like the weeklong break every month causing distress among Indian pilots.

For those interested, the following link provides a summary of recent news articles related to the growth of Indian aviation:

http://indianaviationnews.net/careers/

Pete