With seven domestic airlines operating 90 flights daily and four international airlines touching down at least thrice a week, Ahmedabad is fast becoming one of the busiest airport in the country. The airlines carried 2.2 lakh passengers in 2006, an unprecedented leap from less than 20,000 till 1995. The fight between the Railways and low-cost airlines, too, has changed the scenario for Amdavadis. Decreasing ticket prices have now made flying an affordable reality for them.

Ahmedabad Airport Director SD Awasthi says passengers have more than doubled in the last two years. Behind this phenomenon are low-cost carriers whose cheap fares have weaned away several Gujarati business travellers, who till recently preferred the Karnavati Express to Mumbai or the Rajdhani to New Delhi.

Khushi Mehta, a management professional likes to fly with Spice Jet instead of taking a train to Mumbai or New Delhi. She says, “It’s much more convenient as it suits my budget.”

Mehta represents the changing face of Amdavadi passengers who has switched over to low-cost flights from trains owing to factors like cost and time. Abhinav Dhavle, a college student also likes to fly with low-cost carriers, given an option between taking a train or a flight. He says, “Time means money and if a low-cost carrier offers me sufficient amount of comfort and saves me time, then I usually prefer to fly.”

The wallet-friendly airlines are here to stay. Travel agents in Ahmedabad point out that Amdavadis have changed with times. Smiral Patel of Keshav Management, which books both train as well as plane tickets, says: “While a 3-tier AC ticket in a train costs anywhere between Rs 600-700, a 2-tier AC ticket costs around Rs 1,500. In such a case, the passenger usually opts for a low-cost flight as the cost of a train and plane ticket is similar.” Patel points out that there are five domestic flight bookings per day in all the low-cost carriers.

Anil Budhwani of Baba Travels in Vastrapur says there has been a decrease in the number of passengers taking trains over a period of six months. He says, “When we compare the number of passengers booking train tickets with those booking flight tickets, there has been a decrease of 25 per cent in train bookings.”

Airport Director, Ahmedabad Airport, S D Awasthi says, “If people are satisfied with an airline company, they will become repeat customers. Some have switched over to low-cost carriers over a period of time but their fee structure is dynamic, which means that the fares can increase or decrease any time.”

According to Air Traffic statistics, 235 flights of Jet Airways India (Ltd) arrived and 234 of the same departed from the Ahmedabad Airport in March this year; 288 flights of Spice Jet arrived and departed from the Ahmedabad airport. As far as International Airlines are concerned, Air India tops the chart with 8,254 passengers flying in the month of March. While Kuwait Airlines flew with 2,400 passengers, Indian Airlines flew with 7,010 passengers. Singapore Airlines on the other hand flew with 3,553 passengers.

With low-cost carriers here, the skies are slowly but surely opening up to middle-class Amdavadis.


Courtesy : Expressindia.com

India Inc may report a slowdown in earnings growth for the fourth quarter of 2006-07 mainly due to skewed expectations for banking and energy firms, although IT sector is likely to keep up the momentum set by sector bellwether Infosys.

For the March 2007 quarter, global financial services major Citigroup expects 26 per cent profit growth for Sensex excluding oil companies, which would be slower than the last couple of quarters.

While this quarter could help 2006-07 end as the fifth straight year of 25-30 per cent earnings growth, it would also mark the end of such high growth figures. Overall earnings growth is expected to moderate at around 15-16 per cent in 2007-08 and 2008-09, analysts at Citigroup said in their Q4 preview report.

Religare Securities said it expects India Inc to report another strong performance with aggregate fourth quarter earnings up 34 per cent and operating profit projected to grow at a robust 30 per cent this year.

"We expect cement, telecom, pharma and auto ancillary sectors to lead the way in terms of earnings growth, while sugar sector will be laggard, reporting a de-growth in aggregate earnings," Religare analysts said.

Being the last quarter of fiscal, results might carry less surprises and the focus would be on the year ahead.

Guidance by IT firms could be a key factor to watch for on whether higher interest rates and tightening liquidity have started to bite into the growth story.

Among key results scheduled this week, IT majors like TCS, HCL Tech and Wipro would be disclosing their numbers.

Courtesy : Expressindia.com