KERALAMONITOR.COM January 31, 2003
AIR INDIA TO LAUNCH HOLIDAY PACKAGE IN GULF AND EUROPE
Air India will offer a series of attractive holiday packages from different destination during lean season. They will be effective from Europe and U.K. from 15th March to 15th June 2003 and in the Gulf region from 15th March to 30th September 2003, except for the period from 25th June to 15th July. Announcing this at a press conference here today, the Civil Aviation Minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain said that the package will effectively bring down the tariff by 20-25 per cent.
He said, the main objective of these packages is two fold - promote tourists traffic to India at affordable prices and to make India a favoured destination in South East Asia and to fill seat capacity particularly during off-peak seasons. He said, the holiday packages promoted by Air India will include return air fare, accommodation, meals and surface transportation in addition to local sight seeing. The Minister said, attractive packages have been made with specially negotiated hotel rates with the Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Association of India and the Hotel Association of India. These holiday packages will target (i) First time visitors to India (ii) Repeat visitors and (iii) Senior Citizens.
AIRPORTS AUTHORITY PAYS RS.55 CRORE DIVIDEND TO GOVERNMENT
The Airports Authority of India today presented a dividend cheque of Rs.55 crore for the year 2001-02 to the Civil Aviation Minister Shri Syed Shahnawaz Hussain. The cheque was presented by the Chairman of the Airports Authority of India Shri S.K. Narula. This is the highest ever dividend paid by the AAI to the Government. The AAI had earned a net profit of Rs.266.98 crore last year. Minister of State for Civil Aviation Shri Sripad Y. Naik and other senior officials were present on the occasion.
AAI manages 124 airports which include 11 International airports, 85 Domestic airports and 28 Civil enclaves. It provides air navigation services over 2.8 million square nautical miles of airspace. During the year 2001-2002, AAI at various airports handled about 5 lakh aircraft movements (4 lakh domestic and 1 lakh international); 40 million passengers (26 million domestic and 14 million international) and 9 lakh tonnes of cargo including 6 lakh tonnes of international cargo.
‘SARAS’ TO ROLL OUT NEXT WEEK / TEST FLIGHT YEAR END
‘SARAS’, India’s first civilian aircraft, a 14-seater will roll out of the hangar next week and take part in the Bangalore Air show without taking to wings. It will be some more months, probably the year-end when the ‘SARAS’ will sore into the sky on its maiden test flight. The light multi-role transport aircraft is mainly intended for use in far-flung, remote and hilly areas of the country. It is ideal for executive transport, light package carrier, remote sensing, ariel research service, coast guard, border patrol, air ambulance and other community services.
Built indigenously by the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Banagalore, in collaboration with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) and several private enterprises, the aircraft will usher in the dawn of civilian aircraft industry in India in a big way, said the Director General of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Dr. R A Mashelkar here today. He said India first ventured into civilian aircraft production and came out with the two seater ‘HANSA’ few years ago. It is best for training, sport and hobby flying and has day and night flying capability.
The project SARAS was delayed due to sanctions imposed by the West in the wake of Pokhran-2 tests. Dr. Mashelkar said that in a way the sanctions helped in major indigenisation of the plane. The twin turbo prop multi-role SARAS is highly suited for short hops in the commuter role as well as long range high speed cruise in the executive transport role. It can cruise at a maximum speed of 520 km/hr with a ferry range of 1942 kms.
