By setting a single spectrum-release deadline for all bidders, the finance ministry aims to ensure a level playing field for all operators.
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.
Manufacturers that mainly sell diesel cars like Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors, Toyota, Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen anticipate a significant fall in sales if the government accepts the Parikh committee's recommendation of a flat tax of Rs 80,000 on diesel cars, because of a widening cost differential with petrol variants.
Manufacturers that mainly sell diesel cars like Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors, Toyota, Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen anticipate a significant fall in sales if the government accepts the Parikh committee's recommendation of a flat tax of Rs 80,000 on diesel cars, because of a widening cost differential with petrol variants.
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.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has asked Communications Minister Andimuthu Raja to complete the auction of the third generation (3G) spectrum within the agreed deadline (February 15), so that the revenue from it can be reflected in the Union Budget for 2009-10. Mukherjee had earmarked Rs 30,000 crore as revenue from 3G auction, which has already been delayed by a year, in the Budget.
The airport and user development fees will be kept out of it.
ITC's investment arm Russell Credit has raised its stake in Hotel Leelaventure to 7.37 per cent --an increase of 2.26 percentage points. The promoters of Mumbai-based Leela group, meanwhile, said they were not interested in tying the knot with ITC as a strategic partner in the growing hotels business.
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.
The trend of airlines shifting capacities to the low-cost model, as witnessed in the current year, is likely to continue in the next year. Around 80 per cent of the capacity converted or added in the latter part of 2009 had been in the low-cost segment, and a majority came from conversions of full fledged services.