National Aviation Company Ltd (Nacil), the entity formed by the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines, has failed to keep up to its promise -- it is yet to provide equal access to a large part of the 30,000 employees under its fold.
As a pre-requisite, the airline has taken the first step by appointing four independent directors to the state-owned company's expanded 13-member board. Stock exchange listing requirements mandate that one-third of a company's board must consist of independent directors.
The move, if accepted, will help resolve nearly one-third of the 1,200 cases on payments pending in various courts in the country.
The Airports Authority of India plans to privatise 15 out of 40 non-operational airports across the country on a public-private partnership basis to make them function again."Out of 40 non-operational airports, 15 have the potential to operate and we have planned to give the airports to private developers to operate it for a concession period," said a top AAI official, who did not wish to be identified.
After stiff resistance from its employees against a steep pay cut, National Aviation Company of India Ltd), which runs Air India, has come out with a fresh proposal to impose a 15-17 per cent cut on the total salary package.The total package includes basic salary, dearness allowance, house rent allowance and payments made under the productivity-linked incentive scheme . The cut, however, would not be applicable on 4000 employees.
India's share will only get bigger once SpiceJet enters the fray from June to fly south east Asia and south Asian countries.
ATC operations provide over 60 per cent of AAI revenue. The move is to ensure focus on revamp of ATC, particularly the key area of staff hiring, where there is a big shortage.
The move comes when Kingfisher remains the only listed airline in India to have made losses in the third quarter of the current financial year.
Air India to shift, unused capacity in existing bilaterals may be mobilised.
The first Indian civil aviation minister to fly for a commercial airline -- Rajiv Gandhi has been the only prime minister to do so -- Rudy started his job with IndiGo from January 4.
Former Civil Aviation Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy has been hired as a co-pilot with Delhi-based private airline IndiGo Airlines on an honorary basis.
"This is the best time that Indian aviation is seeing and the next six months will be critical. The airlines should monetise this growth without getting into unnecessary capacity addition," said Nikhil Vora, managing director, IDFC-SSKI, a financial services group.
The runways are expected to be made operational for the larger aircraft before the Commonwealth Games in October.
The airport and user development fees will be kept out of it.
The loan will be at an interest rate of 7.5 per cent and for a period of three years. "We have negotiated with SBI for Rs 600 crore (Rs 6 billion) and Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) will come immediately and the rest will come by March-end," said a senior AAI official.
The passenger numbers in the third quarter were up by over 25 per cent compared to the same quarter last year.
The national carrier to get lion's share of the Rs 1,978 crore budgetary support demanded by the ministry for 2010-11.
Chinese auto component manufacturers are quietly making inroads into India.
Road ministry mulls a fee of Rs 15 for such a cover.