Air India Resumes Plan to Join Star Alliance

Air India will restart the process of joining the Star Alliance, two years after its previous membership bid stalled. At a board meeting held in Vienna on Friday, Star Alliance’s member airlines unanimously agreed to recommence the integration process with India’s national carrier.   The Indian national carrier was originally accepted as a future member of Star Alliance in December 2007, but the integration process was halted in July 2011. Air India has experienced a difficult few years, with the Indian Airlines merger, several periods of industrial action and strong competition severely impacting its profits. The state-backed airline has also been forced to rely on several government bailouts in order to stay afloat. But recent years have shown signs of improvement for the national carrier, with pre-tax earnings returning to the black in the 2012-13 financial year, and deliveries of new aircraft, including the fuel-efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliner. (Traveldailymedia.com)

 

 

Airlines to Make US$ 20 Billion in 2014

The world’s airlines will make almost US$20 billion in profits next year, according to the latest forecast from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The figure of US$ 19.7 bn marks an upward revision from the previous full-year profit forecast of US$ 16.4 bn, and will represent 53% increase on the US$12.9bn profits the world’s airlines are expected to make in 2013. IATA said the upward revision reflects “lower jet fuel prices as well as improvements to the industry’s structure and efficiency”. Despite the positive forecast however, margins remain weak at just 2.6 % of revenues, which are forecast to total US$ 743 bn next year. (Traveldailymedia.com)

 

 

Hotel Prices Increase for New Year’s Eve

Hotel prices have risen across the globe to welcome in 2014. Based on ten popular New Year’s Eve destinations, the largest increase can be found in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, according to the trivago Hotel Price Index (tHPI) reported monthly by hotel comparison site trivago.co.uk. Prices here are up by 226 per cent, from a December monthly average of £130 to £423 on December 31st. Like Edinburgh, Rio is famed worldwide for its New Year’s Eve celebrations, with Copacabana Beach welcoming approximately 2.5 million visitors annually. Brazil is a popular destination for 2014 as the host country of the FIFA World Cup, with a total of 12 destinations holding matches next summer. Rio’s Estadio de Maracana will welcome visitors to seven matches, including the final on July 13th.Other destinations showing significant increases this December 31st include Sydney, Budapest, Rome and Barcelona. (Traveldailynews.com)

 

 

Boeing 777X Wind Tunnel Testing Under Way

Boeing announced that low-speed wind tunnel tests have begun for the Boeing 777X, a major milestone in airplane development. Testing started on December 5 at QinetiQ’s test facility in Farnborough, UK. Wind tunnel models allow experts to test many different configurations for the airplane. Low-speed tests measure airplane performance with a variety of high-lift surface settings to simulate takeoff and landing conditions. The low-speed model currently being tested is a 0.05 percent scale model of the baseline 777X, measuring about 4.22 meters (166 inches) long with a wing span of 3.92 meters (154 inches). Hundreds of sensors are embedded in the model to measure pressure to determine the in-flight loads as well as provide valuable diagnostics of the aerodynamic performance of a given design. (Traveldailynews.com)