Air Kerala- New airline in the south

India will soon have another airline. (Fly91 from Goa was the latest addition). UAE based businessmen have planned to launch a regional carrier called Air Kerala. As per their official website airkerala.com, the airline has got some initial permissions from the Government to launch a carrier. However airline is yet to setup aircrafts, crew and decide on their destinations & pricing.

Air Kerala will be launched as a low cost carrier, offering economical tickets. Air Kerala seems to be interested in inducing ATR 72 aircrafts to start with- these single aisle, no middle seat aircrafts are good for short distance flights- Air Kerala will be able to fly to various regional destinations from its hub in Kochi- Lakshadweep, Calicut, Bengaluru, Chennai and so on.

Even within Kerala there are lots of potentials- many airport combinations are not served with direct flight. Such as

• Trivandrum-Kannur (500 kms)
• Trivandrum-Calicut (400 kms)
• Trivandrum Madurai (320 kms)
• Kochi-Mysuru
• Trivandrum-Mangaluru
• Trivandrum-Goa
• Kochi-Goa
• Calicut-Pune
  

Lots of people might prefer a short flight instead of several hours of road or train journey. So Air Kerala definitely has lots of potential. When they launch international flights, if flying via Kochi is lot cheaper, people may prefer it- like Mysuru-Blr-Dubai return costs 20k, but Mysuru-Kochi Dubai return costs 15k, then why not fly via Kochi?

Air Kerala also has plans to launch cheap flights to middle east but for that they should first fly a few years within India. If we can fly to Dubai, Sharjah, Bahrain, Muscat etc for a price cheaper than what costs to fly Kerala to Delhi, J&K, north east, then many tourists might prefer middle east over domestic destinations. Let us see.

Here's wishing good luck to the new airline Air Kerala.

Bengaluru Kuala Lumpur 13k return on Batik Air

 Bengaluru folks, cheap ticket to Kuala Lumpur available on Batik Air for March 2025. Plan well and save

Batik Air was full service airline unlike AirAsia, but now they also have started charging extra. Cheapest fare won't get you any food or checked bag. You can chose slightly more expensive fare type or pay extra.

Cheaper tickets also available to other destinations in Malaysia like Kota Kinabalu and Langkawi

I've flown Batik Air from Chennai to Bali and the service was good.

Available for various other dates as well, you've to check yourself.

Malaysia is visa free for Indians till end of 2024. Hopefully it extends into 2025

Read my earlier Malindo Air experience here

On each Air India flight, 2-3 passengers lose their checked bag!

Recently a report listed Air India as the world's worst airline when it comes to losing passenger's checked in bags. Air India loses as many as 33000+ bags every month across its network.

I was trying to calculate how many flights Air India operates per day. This information is NOT readily available online, so I had to try to calculate myself: Below are my assessment

Air India has about 145 planes, serves 37 international and 44 domestic destinations. Around 60 wide body planes and rest are narrow body.

International destinations are served at max 1 flight per day, often only 3-4 days a week

Domestic flights- 2 hour flight, 1-2 hours at the airport (taxi, wait for boarding/de-boarding, fuel, baggage & food loading/unloading, maintenance)- so 4 hours per flight means an aircraft can do max 6 flights per day. I don't think every aircraft operates 24 hours a day- there will be maintenance work at night, some aircrafts will be out of service, there will be delays etc. So let us assume 4 flights per day for each aircraft- about 80+ planes making 4 flights per day= 320 flights per day, 60 wide body planes making average 2 flights per day= 120 flights, total of 440 flights per day

Air India is losing 33000+ bags in a month or 1100 bags per day.  With 440 flights per day, this comes to 2.5 bags per flight. In other words, on every flight, 2 to 3 Air India passengers are likely to lose their checked baggage!

Image credit: This tweet

With an average 200 passengers per plane, this comes to about 1%. Above stat puts probability of losing your bag in an Air India flight at 2%

Sad part is Airline doesn't have any SOP when a customer reports that his/her bag is lost. They can't track it, they can't give a reasonable timeline when it will be delivered, no compensation, no courtesy to paying passengers.

Check this tweet for the plight of an affected passenger:

https://x.com/thekaipullai/status/1807985384380399784