'Airports must look at their maximum capacity to handle passengers.'
Tata Group-owned Air India has informed the Centre that aircraft lessors wish to set up their special purpose vehicles (SPVs) outside India since they aren't enthused about the Indian 'legal structure' and are loath to take risks. Indian airlines have a combined fleet of about 700 planes; over 85 per cent are on lease. A majority of lessors are based in Ireland due to its attractive tax policy, light-touch regulations, and swift legal system.
Tata Group-owned Air India, under its new chief executive officer and managing director Campbell Wilson, is optimising its domestic strategy under which the carrier is "densifying" its presence on metro-to-metro routes and exiting from unviable ones, Business Standard has learnt. Wilson took charge on July 25. Air India has increased its flights on metro-to-metro routes such as Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Bengaluru, Mumbai-Chennai, Mumbai-Bengaluru, and Hyderabad-Mumbai between June and November this year.
The race for space has got real, and it is attracting funding like never before. In 2022 so far, funding to private players in the space sector has jumped a whopping 61.5 per cent - soaring to $108.52 million compared to $67.2 million in 2021. Propelling it is the government's decision to open up the space sector to private players and the work done by companies like Skyroot Aerospace, the Hyderabad-based start-up behind the launch of India's first privately developed rocket on November 18.
'The current launch is a sounding rocket, this cannot be called a milestone. The importance is this is for the first time a private player is doing it.'
After incurring losses for two years on the trot, German luxury automotive company Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (abbreviated as BMW) has posted net profit in India in 2021-22 (FY22), primarily due to high demand of its top-end vehicles, cost optimisation, and price hikes, Business Standard has learnt. BMW India said in its FY22 financial statement that the company is focusing on growth and achieving profitability through induction of new products in the market, strengthening its dealership network, and improving customer satisfaction while reducing costs. The company posted its highest-ever revenue in India in FY22 at Rs 4,365.8 crore.
Sales growth of entry-level cars or hatchbacks like WagonR and Alto have seen a decline during the past few years due to changing consumer preference. Maruti Suzuki chairman R C Bhargava had on October 28 said that he does not expect hatchback unit sales to grow in the fourth quarter (Q4FY23) or in the next fiscal year.
Ending its uncomfortable journey in India after eight years, Malaysia-based AirAsia Group on Wednesday said it has exited AirAsia India by selling its remaining 16.67 per cent stake to Tata Group-owned Air India for Rs 155.64 crore. Later in the day, Air India said it has begun the process of creating a single low-cost carrier subsidiary by merging AirAsia India and Air India Express. A working group consisting AirAsia India CEO Sunil Bhaskaran and Air India Express CEO Aloke Singh has been formed for the two carriers' integration, which is expected to take approximately 12 months, it added.
Domestic passenger vehicle (PV) sales saw a significant growth in October due to increased availability of semiconductor chips and rising consumer confidence. The sales figures during the month - which coincided with the first post-Covid festival season - released by the top ten carmakers saw a jump of 30.7 per cent to 322,885 units in October. Auto companies count wholesales - units dispatched to dealers - as sales.
Mamallapuram's Group of Monuments -- a collection of 7th- and 8th-century religious structures -- attracted 46 per cent of the total foreign tourists who visited India compared to 12 per cent by the Taj.
Sunil Bhaskaran, AirAsia India's chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD), is the front-runner to head the low-cost carrier that will take birth after the merger of Air India Express and AirAsia India, sources said. In a show of confidence, the airline's board extended Bhaskaran's tenure by three years -- until March 2025 -- in a meeting held earlier this year, according to the documents reviewed by Business Standard. Moreover, AirAsia India's board of directors has increased Bhaskaran's salary twice in 2022 -- first in January by 5 per cent and then in June by 7 per cent, the documents showed.
On Sunday, at 12.07 am in Sriharikota, off the coast of the Bay of Bengal, it was almost like an early Diwali, with the sky lit up by the launch of 36 OneWeb satellites. The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) did the launch on a 43.5-metre-tall Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk III) rocket. After the countdown, which started 24 hours in advance, once the mega screen marked the launch, a select group of invitees at the gallery cheered by applauding the feat.
Spectrum allocation for satellite services came up as a dominant theme at the launch of 36 communication satellites by OneWeb, a Bharti group venture, here on Sunday. Following the launch, Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Mittal, in a conversation with a group of reporters, reiterated that spectrum auction did not make sense in the case of satellite services. "This (satellite services) is not competing with mobile services where you can justify the auction.
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.
The Apple iPhone comprises 44 per cent of the global smartphone market's revenues and it is the second most-such device to be shipped after Samsung. More than half of smartphones used in the US are iPhones. More than 7 million iPhones are expected to be sold in India in 2022, extending the user base to 20 million, according to market research and analyst firm Techarc. Hence, the news about Apple scaling down its production target for iPhone 14 in India has made news.
Driven by a rise in sales during the current year, German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz said on Thursday that the company is expecting a growth in sales of around 8-10 per cent in the next few years. This comes at a time when the company is ready to surpass the previous highest sales of 15,538 vehicles (2018) in 2022. During the first half, the company sold 7,600 units. It already has an order bank of around 7,000 vehicles. In 2021, the company sold 11,242 vehicles.
India will have 30 per cent of its two-wheeler industry turning electric by 2030 as new manufacturers lead the shift, said a report on Monday. Passenger vehicles will be 15 per cent electric and the three-wheeler segment 75 per cent electric by 2030, said the report by BNP Paribas called 'India Autos-Electric vehicles: Minutes to midnight'. "We see FY22 as the year of inflection for the two-wheeler EV industry, with an accelerated EV adoption helped by incentives, wider availability, model launches, rise in crude prices and improved general awareness. We see 30 per cent of the 2W industry turning electric by 2030; the pace of incentive withdrawal presents an upside/downside risk," the report (India Autos - Electric vehicles: Minutes to midnight) said.
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.
'This year there is a sharp spike in fever cases, and it seems to be more than the pre-COVID-19 levels.'
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.
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