African carrier Ethiopian Airlines will resume flights between Singapore and Addis Ababa from Changi Airport on March 25, after a three-year absence due to the pandemic. There will be four weekly direct services between Singapore and Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, said Changi Airport Group and Ethiopian Airlines in a joint statement on Friday. The carrier is the only airline that operates on this route. Flights from Addis Ababa to Singapore will take about 10½ hours, while the return journey will take close to nine hours. A 270-seat Boeing 787-8 aircraft will be used for the flights, which also connect to Kuala Lumpur. This means that flights will start in Addis Ababa and transit at Changi Airport before departing for Kuala Lumpur. On the return journey, flights from Kuala Lumpur will go on to Addis Ababa after transiting at Changi Airport. Lim Ching Kiat, CAG’s managing director of air hub development, said: “Ethiopian Airlines has been consistently voted as the best airline in Africa, and the network from its Addis Ababa hub connects with more than 60 destinations on the African continent.”<br/>
star
EgyptAir is set to increase direct flights between the Russian capital, Moscow, and the Red Sea resort cities of Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada to 28 flights per week starting 2023, up from 10 flight currently. According to Ahram Online, the move aims to bolster the arrival of Russian tourists to the resort cities. The increase in flight numbers comes following a move by Jordan last week to close its airspace to Russian airlines due to sanctions meted on Moscow for its military operation in Ukraine. In October, Russian airline Aeroflot resumed services from Moscow to the cities of Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh, seven months after it suspended direct flights to Egypt. The Egyptian government has been keen to boost international tourist arrivals, and has embarked on a vigorous campaign to market the North African country as a favourable destination.<br/>
Tata Group's efforts to revive Air India have started to pay off, with the previously state-owned carrier going from worst to first in on-time performance in the country. Since it acquired Air India in January, the Indian conglomerate has injected operational know-how into a struggling airline with a reputation for poor service. As it seeks to gain market share, Air India reported an on-time performance of 90.8% at the country's major airports in October. Just a year earlier, the airline ranked lowest among top Indian carriers, logging an on-time performance of 75.1% in October 2021. It received three complaints per 10,000 passengers that month, far above the 0.57 average. For Air India, improving punctuality is just one step toward overcoming its image problem. "Its planes are so old that I feel tired just being onboard," said a Japanese man in his 30s who works in Bengaluru. A Mumbai resident called Air India the most unpredictable airline, with lost luggage a frequent occurrence. Originally created as a Tata unit and brought under state control in 1953, Air India was worn down in recent years by a brutal price war with budget airlines and was weighed down by mounting debt. Enter Tata, which regained control in January after nearly 70 years. Armed with cash, Tata increased aircraft procurement, hiring and employee training. It created a team dedicated to improving customer service, local media report. Tata plans to reorganize its aviation business by buying out joint venture AirAsia India and merging it with a budget airline unit by the end of 2023. Air India would be combined with Vistara, a joint venture with Singapore Airlines, in 2024.<br/>
Boeing is closing in on an order for as many as 200 of its 737 Max jets from Air India Ltd.’s new owner Tata Group as the two sides race to wrap up talks before the year-end holidays, according to people familiar with the matter. The final deal is expected to include 40 to 50 Max aircraft that were built for Chinese carriers but never delivered due to an extended grounding of the US jet and heightened trade tensions, some of the people said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are confidential. A Boeing spokeswoman declined to comment. Air India and Tata representatives didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment outside of normal business hours. Broader negotiations over Air India’s fleet makeover have heated up in recent weeks as the management team eyes sweeping changes, including refreshing the carrier’s long-haul fleet with Airbus SE A350s and Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner jets and leasing used Boeing 777s to serve on international routes. The talks are complex, involving multiple parties including financiers and engine makers, and could drag into next year, the people cautioned. With its large and increasingly mobile population, India has become a critical market for planemakers like Boeing and Airbus, even more so given China’s difficulties emerging from Covid. The country’s dominant carrier is IndiGo, the world’s biggest customer for Airbus’s best-selling A320neo family of jets, making it crucial for Boeing to build a better presence in the nation.<br/>