Jetstar and Virgin Australia have been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars after they were found to have advertised “false and misleading” flight prices. The federal court Tuesday ordered Jetstar Airways to pay A$545,000 and Virgin Australia Airlines to pay $200,000 for breaches of Australian consumer law. The penalties come after the court found in 2015 that the use of “drip pricing” by the airlines was misleading and deceptive. Drip pricing is where a headline price is advertised at the beginning of an online booking but extra fees and charges are introduced as it progresses. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission launched the federal court proceedings in 2014, arguing that extra fees should be disclosed upfront and prominently. <br/>
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Cash-strapped regional airline Air Costa has suspended its operations till March 15 for operational reasons, said a company official Monday. The 3-year-old feeder airline was operating daily service to 8 cities, including 6 in the southern region - Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Tirupathi, Vijayawada and Vizag and 2 in the western region - Ahmedabad and Jaipur. "We have grounded our 2 Embraer aircraft. We are talking to investors for infusion of investments as we are facing a fund crunch," admitted Costa VP Kavi Chaurasia. Though the airline had 4 Embraer jets with a capacity to fly 112 passengers in each of them, 2 are stalled at Hyderabad airport after they were impounded by GE Capital Aviation Services for defaulting on payments. The carrier has about 600 employees. <br/>
Go Airlines (India), which operates the low-fare airline GoAir, is readying itself for an IPO as investors have turned bullish on airline stocks, its top executive said. “The IPO window is not off at all, we are just looking at the right timing,” Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, CE of the airline said. “Warren Buffett has gone on to aviation which again sends a positive signal. Investors are coming in.” In 2015, Go Airlines had indicated it was keen to look at an IPO once its fuel-efficient Airbus A320neo planes start joining its fleet. These planes have now started joining the airline’s fleet even as it has doubled the number of planes on order from 72 to 144 this year. GoAir, which has an 8% domestic market share, will embark on its biggest expansion in the coming fiscal year, adding 1 aircraft a month to increase its size to 37 planes by March 2018. <br/>
UTair Aviation plans to launch daily Boeing 737 service from Moscow Vnukovo to Berlin, Munich and Vienna this spring and summer. Munich service will begin April 17; Berlin Tegel and Vienna services are scheduled to start June 1. The Moscow-Berlin service is currently operated by Aeroflot, which flies to Berlin Schönefeld, and S7 Airlines, which started Moscow Domodedovo-Berlin Tegel flights in March 2016. In the beginning of last year, Airberlin ceased flights to Moscow; later in the year Eurowings closed the route. Moscow-Vienna service has decreased significantly over the past 2 years. FlyNiki ceased flying the route in 2015; Transaero Airlines, which also served the route, went bankrupt at the end of 2015. UTair carried 6.6m passengers in 2016, up 20.1% year-over-year. <br/>