Etihad Airways and RAK Airways sign codeshare deal

Etihad Airways and RAK Airways sign codeshare deal | GulfNews.com

This make me laugh. Do you know why? RAK Airways is marketed as a low cost carrier but it has certain frills, and Etihad is aiming to be a boutique carrier. RAK Airways has had a rocky start, it was shut down initially then restarted and now its plagued with lengthy delays. Etihad seems to be partnering up with a lot of airlines and investing in ailing airlines. Previously AirBerlin and Etihad have signed a partnership deal - Etihad heavily investing in the airline and boom, Etihad demanded change of the AirBerlin CEO....

Anyway the partnership of Etihad with airberlin might be a good move, since Etihad will not become a global player but remain mostly as a regional player. Emirates has taken the position of global player in the market years back. Etihad service might be much better, but it does not compare in terms of sheer size when you put Emirates in the picture. What's funnier is the start of Abu Dhabi to Ras Al Khaimah flights. Now, I do know that RAK is trying to come up as an Emirate in the UAE by luring in investors at its free zone and its also become much easier to start a business in RAK but I just don't see the market potential. 

Dubai and Abu Dhabi have crossed the limits and they were the first two emirates to invest in a free economy and well they are reaping the benefits. RAK has woken up too late, i think trying to compete with these two might be a tough task as Abu Dhabi has ample amount of money to support itself and also Dubai. The distance between Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah is a mere 234 kms, which traditonally people have been driving. UAE does have a wonderful network of roads which allows this. RAK is not a business center or a major tourist destination. Most tourists bound for RAK fly into Dubai or Abu Dhabi and then tour operators have already arranged transport for them. 

Anyway for me a domestic flight in the UAE is pointless, the partnership between the two arilines is also pointless, but who knows they might make it work? It two totally opposite business models trying to make it work. More over, flights between Abu Dhabi and RAK are also not worth the effort, the drive down is much more scenic and less hectic than going through check-in, security, etc etc.... and lets not forget about RAK Airline's on time performance.

Qantas, Emirates sign partnership deal

Qantas, Emirates sign partnership deal | GulfNews.com

Reading the above article, well of-course i had my views to express. What I don't understand is Qantas, an age old player in the market doesn't have a strong hold in the European market, but alas it is a part of One World alliance which gives it access to numerous destinations in Europe via British Airways, which is also a part of OneWorld, besides BA, Qantas has an access to a numerous amount of destinations via Germany (Air Berlin). 

Moving on, what other benefits would Qantas have to sign a partnership with Emirates - Indian subcontinent and Africa. Well Cathay Pacific is well covered within India. Africa is a big loop hole and maybe Emirates would be able to fill that. For its European destinations, Qantas has a scissor hub at Singapore, which is a Star Alliance dominated territory. Much of the move to sign a partnership deal seems a bit pointless to me. Qantas could easily make the Australia - India route work with its own aircraft.

Emirates, I don't see much of a gain in this. Partnering with Qantas doesn't boost anything for Emirates since it already has a good market presence in the Australian market. 

Well that's how i see it, let's see what happens in the future, maybe this is a strategic move on the part of Emirates as it tries to tap into the lucrative Australasia to West Coast US market which it has been trying to do for years now. 

The Air India Refut

The Article

Before you start reading my post, read the article above. Just a brief background, the Mint is an online newspaper which is a joint venture between The Hindustan Times and The Wall Street Journal. 

Couple of years back there was talk of Air India possibly joining Star Alliance in order to help the ailing carrier with passengers and access to different markets throughout the globe. Just recently before joining into the alliance, its entry was revoked by Lufthansa and other Star Alliance members. It was given 5 years with further extensions to comply with the Star Alliance integration but according to Star, it was unsuccessful. 

Air India has leaked out the emails that have gone between Star and itself and how they have now turned their attention to Jet Airways, the whole scenario is explained in the article. It makes an interesting read but there are certain things that just don't add up. 

Since the deal didn't go through, Air India's response was predictable. Rather than admitting to its own faults it has gone all out on blaming Star Alliance for the deal falling through. Because, as we all know, Air India is a shining beacon of meeting goals and requirements. 

I am no Air India apologist nor am I for Star Alliance. Untimely, I think, Star is a business, they would do whatever best suits them. For the Government of India to bend over backwards to allow all this to happen under their nose was not Star's fault. I am sure, India is big economy to handle itself. They didn't need to allow extra frequencies to and from Germany to India exclusively for Luftansa. They could have denied it all together. Now that Air India wasn't able to get it  together, now they blame Jet and Lufthansa. 

Again, how the GOI could have allowed this to happen i am not sure. Bypassing Air India (a government entity) and then allowing a go-ahead for Jet a private Indian airline. Frankly speaking, I doubt Jet's entry into Star Alliance would be beneficial as Singapore Airlines is already a founder member. This situation is very similar to the one where Air India put an arbitrary amount "owed" by Boeing due to the delay of its 787 aircraft delivery. Boeing had then made it very clear that the amounts, in case of a delay, were mentioned in the contract and that they are not liable to pay a penny more than that. Did no one read the contracts?

I wonder how long this airline would be run by the government. As i always say, there is so much potential for the airline, but due to the government interference, its been run aground. India is a country of more than a billion people, of which even if 30% have a disposable income or travel by air, AI is due to succeed. NRI's and POI's would prefer to fly their own airline only if it were more reliable and more accessible. 

  

Lunch Conversations - Love Notes

A few days back i was having lunch with colleagues and we were discussing the topic of love, which got me thinking about it. 

How did it start? Well, two of my staff who had been in a relationship for more than 10 months had an argument about an iron and decided to physically hurt each other. Now these are two girls beating each other up. Sure there are differences in any relationship, but i believe, no matter how angry or hurt you are by your other half doesn't give you the right to get physical and beat each other up. 

How many times have you asked your self that question? Or better yet, how many times have we said, "Oh! She is the one for me", or even "He is the right guy" after dating someone for two weeks? The problem is, we really don't know what love is... what does it really mean! "Love" is used as a passing word in every sentence we use. 

How did you know that you love someone within two weeks of dating someone? Love needs time to grow. Love is full of compromise. Love isn't about mushy, romantic evenings, expensive gifts, romantic dinners with champagne everyday! Love is about adjusting, understanding and many more things which we might not think are exciting. 

If you say that the person you have dated for a few weeks is the one your going to marry, welcome back to reality. Give it one year and i can assure you that you will be re-evaluating that decision. In this day and age, humans have evolved. We require space and time. We are no longer interested in our partner's progress but our own. We focus on our goal more often than focusing on our relationship. 

Someone might come back to me and say that i am wrong, but i never asked for an opinion. All i need you to do is close your eyes and think about it, do you really love your partner? or is it more about the human needs for just a companion when they are down and when your happy, well you really don't need the person because everyone will share your happiness but only that someone special will be next to you during your tough times. 

Love doesn't always give immediate returns. When you plant a rose, it doesn't blossom the next day. Love doesn't ask perfection of us. In fact, it rejoices in our imperfections as much as our strengths. It's our imperfections that give us empathy with others who are in pain and struggling with life, and empathy is very much part of love. 

Well i guess enough of my lecture and back to some thinking. What do you think? Love is easy? NOPE! Love takes time, love takes patience, love takes some thinking, love takes adjusting!

Growing Up In Dubai

Living & growing up in Dubai in the olden era (well definitely after 1985) had me thinking about a lot of things happening here. The immigration building in Deira was once the longest building in the UAE... I could see World Trade Center all the way from my little one story villa in Jumeirah along the beach road (now known as the Jumeirah Road). Al Ghurair Center was one of the only malls around. 

Hanging out with friends from school meant only a few things, either play CS!! (Counter Strike) in some small internet shop with your friends, or go bowling on SZR or watch a movie! 

Unfortunately the luxuries of all those activities were attainable for only a few. For me, fun meant something different while growing up. It meant spending more time with my dad, helping around my mom and being a (quite literally) "home" boy. 

Life as you know it now in Dubai, was quite different then. I was quite different then, simply untouched by the materialism in those days, i would find pleasure in little things. I would be happy if i got a nice ink pen for my birthday from my parents. I would be happen when i got a nice book to read as a gift. I would be happy with a new pencil case. Things changed, upon getting into university at Penn State, i believed my future had changed for the better. Dubai had evolved, so had i. Dubai was on the verge of modernization, and i was leading to a more open-minded life. Accepting who i was, who i am because my only goal for that moment. 

Who knew that the decisions i make in life, would directly affect my future? Well now it seems all realistic and logical to think that decisions you make early in life affect your future, but in the age, when you are still maturing and trying to find yourself, you tend to make decisions unknowingly and blindly. I would never regret my decision, but I do think that i could have taken more wiser choices, if given a chance again. 

Who knew that a small dot in in the world map would one day become a world renown tourist destination?

That is the old SZR... miss the times when going from point A to point B in Dubai wasn't such a headache! Miss the times when making a personal decision wasn't such a task!!

Indian Television

Probably the worst thing to happen to India was their sitcoms. I wonder what the women (and some men) see in these never ending sagas that attaches them to the t.v. and that all their other work has to happen around the show timings, because once its on - no one can disturb them. I feel like the writers or the producers are probably from broken homes or families to think of such topics and issues which just go on and on and on....

Few of my biggest pet peeves of these Indian sitcoms is the un-Godly use of make up which just seems so "pretty". If this was real India, maybe 40% of the population wouldn't have the income source to own the amount of make up they use. It would probably amount to 90% of the month's average monthly income for a middle class employee.

Then you have the brightly colored silk sarees, which they seem to sleep in too! I truly applaud any Indian woman who would be fully "decked" up and in their bed! which includes the make up. I don't think it is possible to find anyone, or else i would probably give up writing these non-sense blogs. With the heat in India and the economic situation where a.c's are a thing of luxury, i am sure they would be sweating to their last bone if these sarees were worn around every single minute of the day, which includes while sleeping.

Lets talk about feminism and feminist writers here, I respect women, but seriously how can you believe that the men do NOTHING at all, stand around the house behind one strong female figure who dictates what is to be done and how she's plotting her next obsticel against her "daughter-in-law". So out of this world but for people who have not seen it, you have to see the sitcoms to believe what i am saying.

Most marriages on these sitcoms have either broken up due to "mother-in-law" influence or some "evil" sister in law or some sort of woman who plots against all of this. Then you have the ideal daughter in law who does everything in her power to stop any evil things happening in her house. I am sure some of you by now have gotten confused with my sentence, but trust me, nothing beats the story line of these sitcom, where the daughter in law is being plotted against, but then she is so darn good that the plotter turns supporter.

No prominent masculine figures are obviously present, well partly due the fact that most of them are either watching cricket or drinking or probably messing around with some other girl. But then who cares, because the women of the house are so powerful that they solve all the problems. I wonder where the money comes from to plot all of this out.

As the Indian population keeps on watching these melo-dramatic, out of the world sitcoms i guess more and more writers who write rubbish like this will be born. We, as Indians, need to move on to changing that, well as some might say the "educated" ones at least because the story itself promotes domestic violence and disturbance.

Ok done ranting about it for now. I wonder how many feel the same way? 

Because society said so....

"I feel like slowly sinking into a bottomless pool where no one can pull me out." - Well this sounds depressing, doesn't it? At some point or another we have all felt it. We have all felt like creeping under a rock in hopes of never being found by anyone. Even i have been though it or maybe am going through it?

Sometimes life should be taken under control. You control your own life, and the decisions you make either are right or wrong. But don't have regrets if the decision was wrong. Just like in school, where you learn from your mistakes, in real life you get to learn from your wrong. Most of us come around showing everyone that we are happy and life is well, but only you know your self what is going on deep within. Some of us do live a lie and this needs to change – well that’s also what I keep on saying.

Confused and frustrated, some tend to chose the easy way out of committing suicide. Is this the only way out? Surely there has to be another way around it. Life throws a challenge and you just go ahead and take the easy way out? Life is not perfect, but nothing is. Again I would like to say – Life is what you make of it.

Indian culture has a lot to do with what the society would think and what your relatives think, and most of the depression cases or even suicide cases comes from there. Parents might be as supportive as possible, but then ultimately they think about what the neighbors and the family and the society think. But speaking of which, does it really matter? Does it matter to you as a person what the neighbor’s son or daughter are doing? How they fared in their exams? Or they got married to their girlfriend or boyfriend? Or God forbid – an inter-religious marriage?

This might root from the fact that people in India really don’t have much to do but worry about others around them. See the progress of India could have been at a much higher rate, even surpassed the US if we just stopped worrying about our neighbors or farfetched relatives. And let me specially mention the idiot box showing sitcoms on “Star Plus” , “Sony” and the likes. These need to change. I wonder how people even take them seriously. Its made for pure entertainment, leave it at that.

It is sad that you see more and more suicidal cases in India when they haven to scored the “99%” in their board exams, or didn’t get into the number 1 college of their choice or even the stupidest thing of not getting into their “parent’s” dream degree course of doctor or engineering. I wonder, being a doctor or an engineer is that important? I guess so, but it doesn’t reflect in the progress of India, does it? If everyone started becoming a doctor or engineer I wonder where India would be? Everyone would be treating each other? Or a good line in “Goodness Gracious Me” – a sitcom that used to air on BBC – “ you wouldn’t have to wait in lines for hospitals if the whole world became India, cause you would be a doctor yourself”

Lets be more positive towards people who have chosen fields other than doctor or engineer. I mean, the arts, hospitality and many more all have respectable jobs and in some cases even higher paying jobs. I don’t see too many doctors or engineers doing too well for themselves.

Why should we care two hoots of what the society thinks of us? Why don’t we do what is good for us? What we care about? What we love? Why do we force our children to do what the society has “approved”? Lets move on.