From croissants to Galouti kebabs and Medu vada, Indian carriers, both low-cost and full-service, are revising their in-flight menus to offer passengers a differentiated fare as competition is heating up amid the boom in air travel with the waning of Covid-19. On Monday, Air India, which was taken over by the Tata Group on January 27, unveiled its new domestic in-flight menu comprising gourmet meals, new appetizers, desserts, and local dishes. Air India's economy class passengers would now be served dishes such as Mushroom cheese omelette, Dry jeera aloo wedges, and Garlic tossed spinach and corn for breakfast, and Vegetable biryani, Malabar chicken curry, and mixed vegetable poriyal for lunch.
Tata Group-owned AirAsia India, which is in the process of being merged with Air India Express, has taken short-term loans worth Rs 630 crore during the last six months to deal with cash crunch. AirAsia India has been making losses since its first commercial flight on June 12, 2014. Its net loss increased by 42 per cent to Rs 2,178 crore in FY22.
Air India said on Monday that it has processed passengers refunds of more than Rs 150 crore during the first few months after its privatisation. After winning the bid for Air India on October 8 last year, the Tata Group took charge of the airline on January 27. Since then, the airline has been taking multiple steps to address the legacy issues such as stuck refunds.
The Tata Group-owned Air India has readied a five-year transformation plan, which is expected to take its domestic market share to 30 per cent, up from 8.4 per cent logged in June. IndiGo leads with a market share of 58.8 per cent. The transformation plan--Vihaan.AI-unveiled on Thursday revolves around tripling the domestic market share with investments in new aircraft, technology and improvements in customer service.
In its first move to significantly expand the fleet after the Tatas took over, Air India has leased 25 Airbus narrow-body aircraft and five Boeing wide-body planes. These will enter service starting December, the company said on Monday. A wide-body plane has a bigger fuel tank, allowing it to travel longer distances such as India-US routes.
The Supreme Court has appointed its former judge P V Reddi to mediate the dispute between SpiceJet and its former promoter Kalinithi Maran, the airline said on Wednesday. The dispute dates back to 2015, when Maran sold his stake in SpiceJet of 58.46 per cent, or 50.4 million shares, to Ajay Singh for Rs 2 after the airline suffered financial trouble. A year later, Maran approached the Delhi high court, alleging a breach of agreement by Singh for not issuing him 189 million share warrants and preference shares despite Maran's Rs 679-crore infusion.
If that happens, India's economic size will be just shy of $20 trillion and its annual per capita income will be about $10,000, when the country celebrates its centenary of independence.
Personal information such as name, gender, email address and phone numbers of some Akasa Air passengers has been leaked to "unauthorised individuals", the airline stated on Sunday. India's newest carrier said it self-reported this incident to Indian Computer Emergency Response Team CERT-In, which is the government-authorised nodal agency tasked to deal with matters of this nature. However, Akasa Air asserted that there was no "intentional hacking attempt, but that the situation was reported by a research expert through a journalist for which we are grateful".
Lamborghini is focusing on bringing its new car models to India faster after the global launch of its Huracn Tecnica, its country head Sharad Agarwal said on Thursday, adding there is a lot more scope for the company to expand in tier I and II cities. "Typically, in the premium and luxury car segments, there is a lag of six to 18 months between a global launch and India launch," he said in an interview to Business Standard. The Italian carmaker launched the two-seater track-focused performance car - the Huracn Tecnica - here on Thursday four months after its global unveiling.
Various indicators make it amply clear that there are grave challenges facing the new government of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, reports Indivjal Dhasmana.
The staff at post offices misappropriated Rs 95.62 crore of public money between November 2002 and September 2021, the Comptroller and Auditor General has said. The money may seem small but it is what common citizen invested in post office savings, the oldest and the largest banking system in the country. The system serves the investment needs of urban and rural clients through schemes such as savings bank, recurring deposits, time deposits, national savings certificates, kisan vikas patras, public provident fund, monthly income account scheme, sukanya samriddhi accounts and senior citizens savings scheme.
Income-tax payers fear they will receive notices from the government because the annual information statement (AIS) provided by the I-T department in many cases is showing incomes in excess of their earnings. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has dismissed these fears as unfounded. The deadline for filing income-tax returns (ITRs) for the assessment year 2022-23 ended on July 31.
Passengers are not allowed to walk on the Delhi airport's tarmac area as it is a security risk. There is a demarcated path on the tarmac for vehicles only.
The impact of fiscal measures announced by the government to contain inflation will be seen in the next few months because of the base effect, reports Indivjal Dhasmana.
The DGCA conducted the spot checks as there have been many technical malfunction incidents in Indian carriers' planes during the last 45 days.
Moody's Investors Service has warned that India, along with the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam are highly vulnerable to volatile food and energy prices in the Asia-Pacific region as the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues to disrupt supplies and raise the cost of agricultural products, especially cereals and vegetable oils, as well as fertilizers and other agricultural inputs. This is so because these countries have a higher weighting of energy and food prices in their consumer price index (CPI) baskets, Moody's said in its report released on Tuesday. The weighting of energy and food in overall Indian CPI stands at over 55 per cent.
SpiceJet said its freighter aircraft, which was heading to Chongqing in China, returned to Kolkata on Tuesday as the pilots realised after take off that its weather radar was not working.
The Union government will take a bit longer to introduce the much-awaited labour codes even as the majority of states and Union Territories (UTs) have framed rules on them. There were speculations that these would be introduced from July 1. While 30 states and UTs have framed rules on the code on wages, 25 of them have done so on industrial relations. Of the two remaining codes, 24 states and UTs have framed rules on social security and 23 on occupational safety, health, and working conditions (OSH), sources said.
The airlines' losses globally are expected to be down from $52 billion in 2021 to $9.7 billion this year and industry-wide profit should be on the horizon in 2023, Director General of IATA Willie Walsh said in Doha on Monday. International Air Transport Association (IATA) represents some 290 airlines comprising 83 per cent of global air traffic. Walsh, in his inaugural speech at the 78th annual general meeting of IATA here, said that while the outlook for airlines globally is positive, the business environment remains challenging.
Tata Group-owned Air India is considering buying more than 200 new planes with 70 per cent of them being narrow-bodied aircraft, aviation industry sources said on Sunday. While Air India has zeroed in on Airbus's A350 wide-bodied aircraft for the procurement, the talks with Airbus and Boeing for narrow-bodied aircraft is still on, they said. A wide-bodied plane like Airbus A350 has a bigger fuel tank that allows it to travel longer distances such as the India-US routes.
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