Close on the heels of the last week announcement of an increase of fuel surcharge on air tickets by Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines, the economical airlines, SpiceJet Ltd, has also decided to raise fuel surcharge on domestic sector air tickets by up to Rs 300.

Prague - The outgoing Czech government on Monday decided to invite the Dutch-French airline Air France-KLM and a Czech consortium of investment Unimex Group and Travel Service low-cost carrier to bid for Czech Airlines, acting Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek said.

The cabinet thus shut out Russia's Aeroflot and a private equity group, Odien, from privatizing the state's 91.5-per-cent stake in the national carrier.

A 'cost-reduction, efficiency-enhancement' aimed restructuring program appears to in the offing for Naresh Goyal's private carrier Jet Airways! The company, which has recently slashed 30 percent of its flights and leased out several of its planes, is now planning to layoff nearly 400 employees.

Some other steps to be taken by the company include the closing down of some of its offices in metros that basically handle ticketing; as well as working out a centralized operation control centre in Mumbai. At present, flight despatch job for the airline is handled at its hubs at Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, and Bangalore.

London, April 17: F

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's leading airlines Cathay Pacific and Dragonair Friday invited nearly 20,000 employees to take between one and four weeks of unpaid leave as part of a raft of cost-cutting measures.

The sister airlines also announced that they would cut flight schedules, axing some Dragonair flights to mainland China and cutting Cathay Pacific's London flight schedule by 17 a month upwards.

The cost-cutting moves came as the airlines announced that first quarter revenue on Cathay Pacific and Dragonair for passenger and cargo services fell 22.4 per cent from 2008.

As per the latest air travel-related data, coming from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), there has been a 15 percent fall in the year-on-year figures concerning total number of passengers carried by the nine Indian airlines in March - the number coming down from the previous year's 37.11 lakh to the recent 31.60 lakh.

The government data shows that the plunge in the number of passengers taking the air route has been continuing over the past nearly 11 months; and the key reasons for the decline is the decreased number of foreign tourist arrivals.