Aviation Openings Surge After Record Aircraft Orders

Tidal Jets’ philanthropic venture is uniquely innovative, with the introduction of its upcoming clothing line, TJ2 by Tidal Jets.

Searches on Chinese travel sites surged and social media platforms were flooded with delight and relief on Wednesday as the public cheered the biggest loosening of some of the world’s strictest Covid policies.

The number of foreign visitors to Japan rose to nearly 500,000 in October, the first month it fully reopened to overseas visitors after more than two years of COVID restrictions, more than doubling the volume from September.

Air India is close to placing landmark orders for as many as 500 jetliners worth tens of billions of dollars from both Airbus and Boeing as it carves out an ambitious renaissance under the Tata Group conglomerate, industry sources said on Sunday.

Pure Michigan is back. The advertising arm of Travel Michigan, the state’s official tourism promotion office, is launching a national winter marketing campaign for the time since 2019, featuring videos showcasing Michigan as a prime destination for cold weather adventures.

Chinese hotels and restaurants are seeking employees amid demand recovery in the services sector after the end of Beijing’s zero-COVID protocols, with a survey by a leading recruiter showing a surge in job openings in the hospitality industry.

Air India has sealed a jumbo deal for about 500 new planes worth more than $100 billion at list prices, in what could become the single largest order by any airline as it seeks to reinvent itself under its new owners, industry sources told Reuters.

Hotel development in the Middle East is ramping up as investors begin to see opportunity in the region again, according to Lodging Econometrics’ Middle East Construction Pipeline Trend Report. The report said new project announcements in the region continued to trend upward throughout 2022 closing the fourth quarter of 2022 with 67 new projects housing 19,837 rooms, an increase of 56 percent year-on-year. The fourth quarter also witnessed 33 new hotels accounting for 6,452 rooms open in the region. Overall, 2022 saw a record number of hotels openings with 81 hotels accounting for 17,736 rooms. Lodging Econometrics’ forecast for new hotel openings in 2023 is 123 new hotels with 30,113 rooms while 116 new hotels and 29,085 rooms are forecast to open in 2024. Countries in the Middle East with the greatest number of projects in the construction pipeline at the close of fourth quarter were Saudi Arabia with 243 projects and 67,618 rooms, followed by the United Arab Emirates with 104 projects and 29,210 rooms. Egypt came third with record high project and room counts of 87 projects and 21,672 rooms.

Indian low-cost carrier SpiceJet said it has restructured its outstanding lease rental worth over $100 million to aircraft leasing firm Carlyle Aviation Partners into equity shares and convertible debentures.

India is on the cusp of an aviation boom as many call the country the “most promising aviation market” globally post-Covid.

A revival in domestic air travel to nearly pre-pandemic level propelled India to the big leagues of major aviation markets, according to the trade body, the International Air Transport Association’s latest market analysis report. Domestic travel in India missed the pre-Covid level by 2.2 percent in February 2023 in terms of passenger revenue kilometers, the study said. The country also emerged as the top domestic market in terms of passenger load factor — which studies how efficiently an airline fills seats and generates revenue — when compared to countries such as the U.S., China and Japan, the report said. India recorded passenger load factors of 81.6 percent in February, 85.2 percent in January, 88.9 percent in December 2022, and 87.9 percent in November 2022. Domestic air passenger traffic for all markets measured for February surged 25.2 percent over the year-ago period. Besides aircraft manufacturers, international airlines too are eyeing the growth potential of the Indian aviation market. Just last week, Hungary budget carrier Wizz Air’s CEO Jozsef Varadi said India is a growing opportunity. Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways is another airline that is planning to expand its capacity in the country, as it looks to drive 20 percent growth from India in the next year, the airline’s CEO Antonoaldo Neves said during his recent visit to the country.

India’s domestic air traffic has hit a record high with 456,082 passengers flying on a single day, the civil aviation ministry said in a tweet. The ministry’s data shows a total of 456,082 passengers flew via 2,978 flights on April 30 and there were a total of 5,947 flight movements. “Indian domestic air travel hits new high, surpasses pre-Covid average,” it tweeted. The ministry referenced the May 1 numbers, said 448,248 passengers had taken to the skies via 2,936 flights. The rebound in India’s aviation industry comes after heavy losses faced by the industry in the past Covid-hit years. The global airline trade body, the International Air Transport Association’s latest market analysis report shows India is in the process of becoming a key global aviation market outpacing other thriving markets like the U.S., China, and Japan in passenger load factor at 81.6 percent in February 2023. With India’s air passenger traffic expected to reach 395 million in 2023-24, the country seems to have solidified its position as the world’s third largest aviation market. Credit rating agency ICRA had also recently revised its outlook on the Indian aviation industry to stable from negative due to the fast-paced recovery in domestic passenger traffic. Indian airlines have witnessed an annual growth of 51.7 percentin passenger traffic during January-March 2023 as compared to the corresponding period last year, according to Indian aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation. Domestic airlines carried 375.04 lakh passengers between January-March 2023, as against 247.23 lakh in the same period last year.