Upfront

Gulf Air takes off with e-ticketing

Gulf Air has launched e-ticketing, a more secure form of ticketing that eliminates traditional paper tickets. This facility is available for passengers travelling on any Gulf Air flight between Bahrain, London, Singapore and Sydney and will be extended soon across the entire Gulf Air network in a phased manner by the end of 2007, complying with the IATA deadline.

Pune Airport To Go International

Pune's Lohegaon airport, with Air India, will begin international operations and is set to introduce a new flight on the Mumbai-Pune-Dubai-Pune-Mumbai route from December 12. The flight will be operated with its Airbus 310 aircraft thrice a week on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. This is being seen as a birthday gift from Praful Patel, Minister for Civil Aviation, to his mentor and union agriculture minister, Sharad Pawar, who turns 64 that day. The city's airport, a part of the Indian Air Force base, is undergoing infrastructure upgradation to make way for the extra traffic. The centre has already sanctioned Rs 100 crore for this, which entails extending runways to accommodate additional flights. The airport will continue to remain under the control of the defence wing.

Patel also said that a new airport would be operational by 2009 at Navi Mumbai. However, the feasibility report on the second airport in Mumbai is expected by middle of next year.

Hotels eye mall space to cut costs

The mid-segment and budget hotels are set to venture into premise-sharing models with upcoming malls across the country - the key reason being the soaring real estate cost. With the government giving the go-ahead to mixed-use development of 300 malls in 50-odd cities over the next two years, at least a dozen of them plan to have a business hotel built over them.