Airports hold pride of place in the government's National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) programme to monetise public assets. Private airport operators, including the Adani group, Fairfax, GMR and Zurich Airport, are expected to evince interest in the next round of public private partnership (PPP) development of state-owned Airport Authority of India (AAI) airports. Industry analysts, however, do not expect bids to be as high as the last round, which saw Adani group gain control of six airports.
The Tata Group-run Air India has banned smoking and consumption of intoxicating substances at the workplace and any employee violating this order will be "dealt with appropriate consequences", the airline's Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) Suresh Dutt Tripathi has stated. It was not clear what was the trigger for Wednesday's communique. Air India did not respond to PTI's request for statement on this matter.
The commercial flight operations of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed Akasa Air will be launched in July instead of June. "As we get closer to the airline launch date, we can now confirm refined estimates on our timelines. "We expect our first aircraft delivery by early June 2022, with the intention to start commercial operations in July 2022," Vinay Dube, CEO, Akasa Air, told PTI.
Air India will no longer enjoy a priority in allocation of international traffic rights. This follows its takeover by Tata Sons in January. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has dropped a clause which gave Air India an advantage over other private airlines in the amended rules issued on April 19.
Due to the group's presence across multiple businesses, it is in a unique position in the aviation industry to bring the best of talents.
'I don't think there will be a direct reaction to the fuel price hike on air ticket prices.'
For Indians, Sri Lanka is one of the favourite venues for destination weddings. But last month, when a family from Delhi chartered a Vistara Airbus A320 to Colombo, it packed much more than the standard paraphernalia of clothes, gifts and jewellery. The family ferried meals from Delhi for all the guests and to cover their entire stay in Colombo due to the food and fuel shortages in the island nation.
The relaxation has been given to facilitate "smooth conduct of air operations", the ministry's order stated.
Sources said the process has taken time because of a delay in leasing of aircraft. As per the original plan the aircraft were to be leased through GIFT City, Gujarat, but this is proving costlier than doing it offshore.
National Medical Commission regulations prohibit Indian medical students overseas to transfer programmes from one university to another mid-way.
SpiceHealth had on January 6 and January 7 tested 469 passengers who arrived on two charter flights from Italian capital Rome and found 298 of them to be COVID-19-positive.
Indian customers will have wider travel options as airlines introduce new flights from the end of March. While Malaysian Airlines and Turkish Airlines are resuming passenger flights to India after a gap of two years, Air France-KLM and Lufthansa Group will scale up their existing service in a graded manner in the summer schedule. Emirates, the largest foreign airline operating in India, too, is looking to restore its pre-Covid-19 schedule of 172 flights per week.
The Tatas have the know-how to quickly close deals which can otherwise get caught in legal wrangle. In 2018, on the day the National Company Law Tribunal declared Tata Steel as the winner of the bid for bankrupt Bhushan Steel, Bhushan promoter Neeraj Singhal was planning to file for a stay order. He did get the case listed for the following day, but the judge did not admit it, deferring it until the following week. The Tatas used the narrow window of 48 hours to close the deal and take control of the company.
The consortium of UAE-based businessman Murari Lal Jalan and UK-based private equity fund Kalrock Capital is rushing to restart Jet Airways' operations, even though differences have emerged over who will fund expenses before operations commence, sources said. The airline applied to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for recertification of its air operator certificate in the last week of January. The regulator is likely to inspect the airline's preparedness to operate a flight in the middle of this month, after which it will be asked to operate a proving flight to demonstrate its ability to conduct flights safely and in accordance with rules.
Air India is set to enhance its in-flight service with a change in ownership from Thursday. This will include more variety in on-board meals, improved in-flight service procedures, and reintroduction of amenities. Non-vegetarian meals are being introduced in the economy class of domestic flights after a gap of nearly four years. Air India is set to enhance its in-flight service with a change in ownership from Thursday. This will include more variety in on-board meals, improved in-flight service procedures, and reintroduction of amenities.
Veterans in the travel industry, a well-known corporate lawyer, and a marquee US-based hedge fund have backed the upcoming low-cost airline Akasa Air. Founded by former Jet Airways chief executive officer (CEO) Vinay Dube, the venture counts ace stock trader and investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala as its biggest financial backer with an investment of around Rs 300 crore. A person with knowledge of the development said most of the people were well known to Jhunjhunwala and Dube, who approached them during the conception stage.
'Our focus is not going to be metro to metro routes.' 'We will begin by focusing on metro to non-metro (routes).' 'Metro to tier-2 cities or tier-3 cities is where there is a lot of space for affordable, efficient carriers.'
In a bad start to the new year, hotels are counting their losses again. Weddings and corporate events for this month have either been called off or postponed. The blow has throttled the nascent recovery which had kicked in around August. It is primarily hurting the banquet-driven hotel chains, some of which are seeing cancellations running into lakhs for a single day.
Jet Airways is seeing a churn in its senior management ahead of its planned take-off this year. Sudhir Gaur, accountable manager and acting chief executive officer, is the latest to quit the company. Finance head M Shivakumar and head of management information system (MIS) Farazad Patrawalla moved out a few weeks earlier. Gaur had been part of the initial team selected by the Kalrock-Jalan consortium, which secured approval from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) last June to revive the airline.
India's largest carrier IndiGo will cut 20 per cent of its flights due to lower demand as a rapidly spreading coronavirus upends the recovery of air travel. The airline was operating around 1,200 flights as on Saturday. Other airlines are being forced to cancel flights as states tighten restrictions to combat the spread of the virus, and people are dropping last-minute travel plans. Airlines carried 2,518 passengers on 260,251 flights on Saturday, compared to 2,794 passengers on 358,856 flights the day before.