An 18-month to two-year delay is expected in the Mumbai airport slum rehabilitation programme to find alternative land to relocate and resettle approximately 80,000 slum-dwellers, who have encroached on 276 acres of airport land.
Bangalore's new airport will be ready on March 7 to receive the first commercial test flights. It plans to start commercial operations on March 28 or 30, soon after Hyderabad's new airport does so on 16 March.
Paramount Airways, the Coimbatore-based private airline, is in an advanced stages of negotiations with aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing for a $1 billion order of 15 wide-bodied aircraft. The deal is likely to be announced shortly.
"Airlines in India like Jet Airways and Air India have firm orders with Boeing for delivery till the year 2011. Now they are planning beyond that in view of expected market growth," said Dinesh Keskar, senior vice-president (sales), Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
The first signs of the move will be evident when both the airlines announce their summer schedules in March after receiving the approval of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. Deccan is likely to bring down and withdraw frequencies between Mumbai-Delhi in the schedule.
The income earned from such activities is crucial for the domestic airline industry, which had accumulated losses of over Rs 2,200 crore in 2007. These losses are expected to rise to Rs 2,800 crore in 2008.
The Aviation Industry Employees Guild will file a petition in the Bombay high court this week against a decision by the National Aviation Company to cut daily outstation and tour allowances within India by 50 per cent. Nacil was formed after merging Indian Airlines and Air India last year.
Will be operational by the time Mumbai airport reaches its saturation capacity of 40 million.
Airlines may get to do terminal-side ground handling. Currently, it is an outsourced activity.
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