PanAm_DC10 wrote:

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Does anyone believe this may be the case pending finance approval as they have the money to cover the deposits for such an order.

Regards,

PanAm_DC10

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Air Sahara was valued at $500m for sale to Jet last year, subsequently Jet Airways the buyer found this overvalued. As part of the deal JetAirways had deposited close to $300m in an escrow account on which Sahara was earning nearly $40,000/day. Today the court in BOM has released this amount to JetAirways.

http://www.ndtvprofit.com/homepage/storybusinessnew.asp?id=33651&template=&cache=9/22/2006%202:16:49%20PM

IMO unless Sahara finds a buyer (distress sale) or merges, it won't be in a position to finance these aircrafts on order.

vabby wrote:

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Tayara u need to understand the whole of the sahara group if u want to study S2. Yes Air sahara is not being run for profit The reason very simple whatever the group makes money from its other sources and all the unaccountable money has to be made legal. How do u do that ??? Simple in lay mans term they are showing expenses in their airlines business using this as levy to do that.

As far as funding of Sahara is concerned its an open fact that all the UP based politicians esp the SP has its money pumped in the airline. And this is word which has always gone around in whole of north india. Cant say wat mumbaites think abt it...

I am pro S2 because of the marketing policies which they come out with plus they have their hub in Delhi. Even though HYD is wat they claim in their official site once. Majority of services start from Del..

Just because one airline not as ambitious as its competetion doesnt mean that airline is crap.

Besides the amount out of the escrow ac has been released on the Bank Guranteee of the same amount so the position is very much the same because tommorrow if the party fails in the litigation process they wud have to pay the amount.

Anyways best of luck to all the airlines because ultimately its we as customers who benifit from the competetion..

cheers

-- Edited by vabby at 21:11, 2006-09-22

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Cheers Vabby for reiterating my point about S2 being the achilles heel of Indian aviation. India doesn't need folks using aviation to wash their laundered money, we need the likes of Indigo, DN and KingFisher to challenge the SQs and Virgin Atlantics of aviation, and to achieve this also rans like S2 need to make way.

S2 needs to create confidence in their product/brand before embarking on ambitious marketing. The last thing an airline with a for sale board does is ask for a lifetime deposits from customers, how much more daft does this get

 

Tried getting a fare on their online site and failed on 2 consecutive days. ASP programming error! It is down now as well. After a couple of frustrating attempts gave up and booked 9W both ways.

Is this airline serious about bouncing back?

Ex-Pune, the Air Sahara website booking engine behaves very strangley for PNQ-DEL fares. What you need to do is to use the back button once you get the ASP or server busy error, and then re-align the From:Pune To:New Delhi columns, and bingo, you get a lower price!

Can't understand the logic, but it works. And is far cheaper than 9W.

In response to the travel agent websites, I do want to strike a note of caution - what are the due diligences as well as guarantees of perfromance? Also, what are the cancellation rules?

Are we suggesting that S2 shoudl reduce service and go LCC? I think a inflight meal is quite necessary, even it is for sale. When we are travelling, some of us barely find time to eat outside and the only time we get to eat is on the flight. Which is why many of us avoid LCC's since meals arent even avail for sale.

In any case I dont think a meal contributes significantly to cost. One of the advantages in India is that you can get fantastic catering at very reasonable rates. An economy class lunch meal can be catered depending on "cost point" and volumes, for between 70 and 200. Taking a mean of 100 bucks, is that too much of a difference to the bottomline? Even if they think it is, they could make inflight meals a revenue stream. but then the meals should be of a certain quality. I am not gonna pay 40 bucks for 2 samosas!!

Lets look at it another way: I paid a slightly lower fare for a 9W flight as compared to a DN flight and yet got served a hot meal, cold towels and the other etceteras! So would I stay loyal to 9W? You bet!!

The whole food thing is overstated by Mallu idiots like Gopinathan who should go back to rearing caterpillars IMO. Unlike in Europe, Indian LCCs use the same infrastructure: same airports, same terminals etc and pay the same user charges. So the only savings they can hope to achieve is by increasing utlization and bringing down costs of distribution. Once 9W/IC also start playing this game of increasing utlization and new distribution methods (and they are) I dont understand how DN and OS and others are gonna compete. Infact if you see the past 2 years, 9W and IC have been the most active in these 2 areas of Cost-Control.

IC broke a record of sorts by averagin over 4500 hours per year on each of their operational A320's: some of their A320's were routinely flying 18 hour skeds! If I am not mistaken they even won an award from Airbus for this achievement. this is how IC managed to actually increase its seat inventory despite the goofup that caused 8 of the A320's to be de-rostered for maintenance simultaneously!!

Now think that DN's 320's are averaging barely 10 hours per day. and Now atleast 1 A320 is kept on standby bringing down the average further!! The ATR's are the only one really makin a significant addition, but their maintenance etc is another story!! I have heard some IC guys refer to DN's ATR engg as a "repeat of Vayudoot". Now draw your own conclusions!!

As for seat distribution and delivery costs: IC and 9W are selling an increasing proportion of their inventory through alternate methods like etickets and mobiles. Here 9W is ahead of all the others by a HUGE margin. Dont underestimate the cost savings here. Now with check-in kiosks etc, they are increasing throughput at airports, especially high volume airports allowing them to get away with employing far fewer staff for check-in etc. Again significant cost savings. 9W is also clearly reducing the "cost point" for its catering(and this is becoming increasingly obvious).

Also dont be taken in by 1 and 3 rupee fares. The difference between IC/9W on one hand and DN is that IC/9W give lower discounts per ticket but it is spread across more seats, while DN gives higher discounts across a smaller base: the effect is the same!! Infact 9W's major problem at this moment is that it is selling over 60% of its seats in the 4 lowest fare buckets which is simply not sustainable and I see this changing in the next schedule.

Ultimately it boils down to managing costs (inculding distribution costs and inventory costs) and yields. Meal service hardly affects these equations!!

COUGAR wrote:

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As for seat distribution and delivery costs: IC and 9W are selling an increasing proportion of their inventory through alternate methods like etickets and mobiles. Here 9W is ahead of all the others by a HUGE margin. Dont underestimate the cost savings here. Now with check-in kiosks etc, they are increasing throughput at airports, especially high volume airports allowing them to get away with employing far fewer staff for check-in etc. Again significant cost savings. 9W is also clearly reducing the "cost point" for its catering(and this is becoming increasingly obvious).

Also dont be taken in by 1 and 3 rupee fares. The difference between IC/9W on one hand and DN is that IC/9W give lower discounts per ticket but it is spread across more seats, while DN gives higher discounts across a smaller base: the effect is the same!! Infact 9W's major problem at this moment is that it is selling over 60% of its seats in the 4 lowest fare buckets which is simply not sustainable and I see this changing in the next schedule.

Ultimately it boils down to managing costs (inculding distribution costs and inventory costs) and yields. Meal service hardly affects these equations!!

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Cougar, my wise friend convenant educated metrosexual indian city lad can you tell me how much does a kiosk at a ''HIGH VOLUME AIRPORT'' cost. Lets take into consideration BOM, we are both familiar with this place. IYO how much rent would you charge as a REDDY for this 1sq-mtr of BOM airport real estate. And then compute this cost value against half-dozen sushilla's in Madras or Trivandrum (your fav cities) seated in a 100sq-ft office taking online bookings for DN.

And for heaven sake stop taking IC into the equation without the GOI cruthes this airline is dead, the planning shortfall on the 12 A320 is evidence. By the way Aircrafts are PLANNED for maitenance and Personnel are ROSTERED. The difference is Hardware (aircrafts) and Liveware (Personnel), so if personnel fall sick the roster takes this into account, which planning cannot and has to be done well in advance. Pls inform your sources at IAC.

Regards meals, your experience might be from eating at dabbhas or Blue Diamond in PNQ. Unfortunately the diff between cooking at a 5* hotel and at a flt kitchen is HYGIENE. The flt kitchen is subjected to a highere std of inspection than a 5*. This raises the cost. Add to it the cost of turning the catering around, load / unload catering plus the added mess of clearing cutlery in the seat pockets and filling them with safety literateur. This adds time, valuable time and hence airlines LCCs offer meals at a high premium for the muppets. This is because it is INDIA, the worlds best cuisine is available here at the most inexpensive and hygienic hotels. You can pick up a Chiken roll or steal a pav bhaji before a flt at any airport in India for a resonable price.

If DN was so out of sync as you project, and IC and 9W were the more clued up smart ones, we wouldn't have had half a dozen new airlines in the last 3 yrs and another 6 waiting to enter. Lets not talk about S2 they are an insult to the indian entrepreneureship (correct spl ?).

Tayara: my dear educated friend, stop talking of IC subsidies without bringing up specifics. Can you give us figures of how much subsidy IC actually received last year and the year before that from the Govt?

And yet you make the illiterate statement about "without govt crutches IC is dead"... Yeah right!

Once again: IC is a profit making airline inspite of the Govt not because of!!

I am aware of the cost equations of catering. But are you?? I wont bother correcting you. I want you to crosscheck with your sources at SkyGourmet or Grand Ashok catering in the metros and even "Deepak Flight Catering" in Pune and find out how much they quote for a typical meal uplift for a daily A320 flight (120 Y seats) based on the menu you provide: you will be given various quotes and options. You will typically be provided with a quote for a 6-month period, divide the figure quoted it by the number  of seats (120x180) and tell us what figures u get per seat!! Please find the rates, and then get back to us!!

The earlier point still stands: Food need not be a significant contributor to cost if other factors are taken into account like utlization of fleet.

As for part of IC's fleet being grounded: they still made a profit despite that. While your favorite DN was in the red by 334 crores!! Says a lot doesnt it??