NATIONAL flag carrier Maldivian is looking to begin charter services from capital Malé to New Delhi in the next two to three months, pending approval from India.

According to Hussain Lirar, deputy tourism minister of the Maldives: “Last year, 30,000 Indians visited the Maldives. We are targeting 50,000 Indian arrivals in 2014 and we hope that direct connectivity between New Delhi and Malé will help us to achieve this target.”

A trade source told TTG Asia e-Daily the airline has decided on a thrice-weekly frequency. Maldivian currently runs flights to Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai.

However travel consultants are sceptical of the likely impact on traffic. Riaz Munshi, vice president of the Outbound Tour Operators Association of India, said ticket prices were a key consideration.

“I think India is not ready for a charter service between the two countries,” he said.

Others felt destination awareness was a bigger obstacle. “There is a need to educate the trade about the various tourist offerings in the Maldives as they are the people who sell the destination. This, combined with roadshows and trade and media fam trips, will help to increase Indian tourist arrivals to the Maldives,” said Vineet Gopal, managing director, Engee Holidays.

Meanwhile, Lirar said the Maldives is inviting the Indian private sector to help develop its north and south regions for tourism.

DYNASTY Travel International staff are now able to make live online bookings for customers buying its packaged tours and promotional offers using iPad minis fitted with proprietary software.

Managing director, Clifford Neo, said the agency had spent two years and around S$500,000 (US$394,000) on the scheme, including proprietary front-, middle- and back-end software to drive the initiative. Some 50 iPad minis were first used at its roadshow at Suntec City shopping mall over the weekend. It has 100 iPad sets for its 110 staff members.

“I’ve not seen any travel agency with this sort of capability,” Neo said. “Dynasty is not only the first in Singapore to achieve this, I believe it is a world-first.”

“The end-goal is to go 100 per cent paperless, and to increase bookings, efficiency and productivity,” the agency boss noted.

Dynasty introduced iPads two years ago to improve productivity, increase marketing reach and cater to its technology-savvy mid- and high-end customers.

The agency continued with its long-term technology innovation commitment by setting up an IT arm to develop its own software.

TRAVEL agencies may soon have to take out insurance against sudden closures to protect their customers, if the Consumers Association of Singapore’s (CASE) push for such a measure is successful.

Following the abrupt closure of travel and coach company Five Stars Tours which left thousands of travellers in the lurch (TTG Asia e-Daily, January 10, 2014) last month, Case intends to first roll out the scheme to 16 CaseTrust accredited travel agencies before extending it to the rest of the industry, reported local broadsheet The Straits Times.

As of December last year, there were 1,154 licensed travel agencies here.

Ong Ling Lee, director, travel agents and tourist guides, Singapore Tourism Board (STB), said: “As an industry-led initiative, the pre-payment protection scheme is one which we welcome as a possible solution for consumer protection…STB will study it more carefully as there are wider implications to be considered.”

Clifford Neo, managing director of Dynasty Travel, said: “This (insurance scheme) may not address the root of the problem as there is still a lack of proper audit by relevant regulatory authorities on what some travel consultants do with money they collect upfront.”

Chan Brothers Travel’s manager for marketing communications, Jane Chang, said: “Deposits or advance payments are not peculiar only to the travel industry because principal suppliers request for cash upfront from travel consultants to guarantee seats, rooms and tours before departures.”

Nevertheless, for travel consultants to attain credibility, Chang suggested STB could raise the bar of entry into the industry. For example, she said STB could increase the paid up capital from the current S$100,000 (US$79,000) to at least S$1 million as part of conditions for application of the Travel Agent (TA) licence, or perform an audit to ascertain financial health of all TAs before renewing the licence.

Robin Yap, managing director, The Travel Corporation Singapore, said: “This insurance will help restore confidence in buying travel products for consumers but there is also the need for insurance companies to offer affordable premiums for travel consultants.

“(Because) at the end of the day, it has to make business sense,” he added.

MALDINO AIR will commence daily direct services between Kuala Lumpur and Kochi beginning April 24 in support of Visit Malaysia Year 2014.

Flights depart Kuala Lumpur at 21.10 and reach Kochi at 22.35, while return flights leave Kochi at 23.35 to arrive in Kuala Lumpur at 06.00 the next day.

Chandran Rama Muthy, CEO of Malindo Air, said the new route was mounted in support of the Visit Malaysia Year 2014 project.

This is the fourth Indian destination the airline is serving after receiving approval from India’s aviation authorities (TTG Asia e-Daily, December 3, 2014). Malindo began New Delhi flights on December 30 last year and Trichy on January 2. Mumbai flights will take off on February 15.

To mark its latest flight, Malindo is rolling out promotional fares from RM399 (US$120) for economy class and from RM999 for business class, all-inclusive one way.

VIETNAMESE carrier VietJetAir yesterday finalised an order with Airbus for purchase of 63 aircraft at the Singapore Airshow.

The agreement sees VietJetAir firming its orders for 42 A430neo, 14 A320ceo and seven A321ceo aircraft, plus 30 purchase rights. The airline will also lease eight more A320 planes from third parties.

Luu Duc Khanh, the airline’s managing director, said: “Based on this experience, we look forward to developing our business across the Asia-Pacific region.”

VietJetAir began operations in 2011 and flies 20 routes including domestic and international destinations like Bangkok, Seoul and Kunming.

Airbus’ latest Global Market Forecast predicts that Asia-Pacific will spearhead global demand for larger and eco-efficient aircraft in the next 20 years, and anticipates higher than average annual traffic growth of 5.8 per cent and replacement of almost 3,770 aircraft currently in use.

Feeding this demand would therefore require some 3,350 twin-aisle aircraft such as the A330 and A350 WXB, and 780 very large aircraft like the A380 model.

STATE-run Myanma Airways has signed a contract for the lease of 10 Boeing aircraft from GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) as part of its plan to return to the international aviation scene in June 2015.

Myanma Airways, which sold its stake in Myanmar Airways International (MAI) to KBZ Bank, has in the past operated as Burma Airways Corporation and Union of Burma Airways using the UB flight code. Its network today covers 26 domestic destinations and Gaya in India.

It will receive the first three Boeing 737-800s from GECAS in June 2015, two more in 2016 and a final one in 2017, after which four more of the longer range and more efficient B737-MAX8s will join the fleet, Myanma Airways announced on the sidelines of the Singapore Airshow 2014.

The 10 aircraft are collectively valued at US$618 million at list price.

GECAS subsidiary AviaSolutions will also be an institutional, management, financial and commercial consultant to the airline in strategic growth planning and route and network development.

Cognizant of the potential confusion in the branding of Myanma Airways vis-a-vis MAI, AviaSolution’s principal consultant, Cronan Enright, said: “We are mindful of this situation and will (clarify this when) reaching out to the travel trade nearer the time when Myanma Airways returns to flying to international destinations.”

Although no specific international destinations were named, Myanma Airways’ managing director, Than Tun, named Japan, South Korea and China as markets that the airline is studying.

AIRASIA Singapore is set to begin direct flights to Kuala Terengganu and Kota Bharu in April, while AirAsia X has confirmed the suspension of flights on the Colombo-Malé sector in April.

The four-times-weekly Kota Bharu service commences on April 21, with flights departing from Singapore at 09.10 to touch down at 10.30.

Thrice-weekly flights to Kuala Terengganu leave Singapore at 09.10 and arrive at 10.35, and the service will start on April 22.

To commemorate the new flights to the two Malaysian destinations – gateways to the popular beach getaways Redang and Perhentian Islands – AirAsia Singapore is offering zero-dollar base fares on the routes.

Both offers are open for booking until February 16 and valid for travel until October 25.

Separately, AirAsia’s longhaul arm AirAsia X will suspend flights from Colombo to Malé from March 1, almost five months after it began tagging the service onto the Kuala Lumpur-Colombo route (TTG Asia e-Daily, September 25, 2013).

However, the carrier will continue to operate Kuala Lumpur-Colombo flights with a four-times-weekly frequency.

Challenging business conditions were cited as a reason for the cancellation. “The suspension of Malé, Maldives is a move made to improve operating cost efficiencies and concentrate capacity in AirAsia X key markets of Australia, China, Taiwan, Japan, (South) Korea, Nepal and Sri Lanka,” the airline said in a media release.

Azran Osman-Rani, CEO of AirAsia X, said in the same release: “Despite our efforts, external factors such as the depreciation of Asian currencies against the US dollar and the chronic lack of hotel room supply in Maldives resulted in cancellation of thousands of bookings by travel operators.”

AirAsia X will offer guests who hold bookings after these dates an option of a full refund, a reroute to another AirAsia X destination, or a rebook of a return flight prior to February 28, for no additional cost.