With the Middle East tensions flaring up, Air India has temporarily suspended its Tel Aviv flights and airlines have charted alternative flight paths to avoid the Iranian airspace.
The airport, being developed by the Adani Group, is expected to start commercial operations early next year.
Around 600 non-flying staff of Air India and Vistara are likely to be impacted by the two airlines' mega-merger, and efforts will be made to provide job opportunities to the affected employees within Air India group and Tata companies, sources said on Wednesday. Tata Group-owned loss-making full-service carriers -- Air India and Vistara -- together have more than 23,000 employees.
A Delhi-bound Air India flight had to abort its take-off and was later cancelled after it hit a luggage tractor trolley while taxiing for departure at the Pune airport, airline sources said on Friday.
Singapore Airlines on Wednesday said it is fully cooperating with relevant authorities in the investigation into the London to Singapore flight which encountered severe turbulence, leading to the death of one passenger and injuring 30 others.
or the first time, the size and specifications of the Indian Navy's future aircraft carrier have been officially acknowledged.
Over the past eight months, a team of 80 people has been diligently working to harmonise operating procedures across four airlines run by the Tata group, as part of two mergers, revealed Campbell Wilson, Air India's chief executive officer (CEO), on Friday. The Tata group is consolidating its aviation business by merging four airlines into two: Air India and Vistara are merging to form a single full-service carrier, while AIX Connect and Air India Express are combining to create a unified low-cost carrier (as a subsidiary of Air India).
While full service carriers (such as Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines and Air Sahara) offer food onboard and personal attention, low-cost carriers (such as Air Deccan, SpiceJet and GoAir) do not offer many of these services.
Low-cost carriers SpiceJet, IndiGo and GoAir have cut fares sharply, just a week after they abruptly raised these following a 20 to 25 per cent slump in sales.
The DGCA had conducted an enquiry into alleged lapses in conversion training of some pilots. After the conversion training, a narrow body pilot can operate wide body aircraft.
Air India will be commencing its scheduled operations -- two daily flights from the national capital -- to Dhaka on Wednesday.
Passenger traffic to Lakshadweep more than doubled from April to June this year.
In a surprise move, struggling multinational coffee chain Starbucks on Tuesday announced the appointment of Brian Niccol as chairman and chief executive officer replacing Indian-origin CEO Laxman Narasimhan who is stepping down.
On Monday, the fifth Air India flight landed in Delhi from Bucharest with 249 Indian nationals while the sixth flight arrived from Budapest here with 240 Indian nationals, the officials said.
Facing disruptions due to non-availability of crew, Vistara on Sunday announced reducing 10 per cent of its capacity or 25-30 flights daily and most of the cancellations are in the domestic network as the Tata Group airline strives to stabilise operations. The full-service carrier is to operate over 300 flights daily in the ongoing summer schedule and witnessed significant disruptions earlier this week as many pilots reported sick, resulting in cancellations of flights. "We are carefully scaling back our operations by around 25-30 flights per day, i.e. roughly 10 per cent of the capacity we were operating.
After facing significant flight disruptions recently, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan on Thursday told the airline staff that the "worst is behind us" and operations have already stabilised. Pilot woes have forced the Tata Group airline to temporarily cut down capacity by 10 per cent or 25-30 flights daily. While acknowledging that things should have been planned better, Kannan said it has been a "learning experience".
Notwithstanding the sweltering heat engulfing major cities, travellers can find solace in the steady airfares to popular summer destinations like Srinagar, Bagdogra, and Kochi. According to airline executives, capacity increases and moderate demand have kept spot airfares from scorching cities like Delhi on a par with the same period last year.
India will launch its first indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant on Monday, making an entry into a select club of countries capable of designing and building a carrier of this size and capability.
Get ready to be pampered when you fly abroad next time. Stung by the slowdown in the US, international carriers are going all out to woo travellers from countries such as India, which are still registering a double-digit growth in outbound traffic.
Expected to be renamed "Shi Lang," after the Qing Dynasty admiral who conquered what is now known as Taiwan in 1681, the carrier has been undergoing modernisation work at the port of Dalian since 2002.
Nearly 80 domestic and international flights received bomb threats in less than 24 hours that later turned out to be hoaxes, keeping thousands of passengers and security agencies on tenterhooks.
National Aviation Company, the name of the proposed merged entity of Air India and Indian Airlines, plans to launch a value carrier to take on the challenge from JetLite and Air Deccan.
Crisis-hit SpiceJet plans to hand out pink slips to at least 1,000 employees in the coming days as the airline works to significantly reduce costs and streamline operations of its depleted aircraft fleet, officials said on Monday. Faced with financial woes, legal battles and other headwinds, the no-frills carrier might ask more staff to leave as there is excess manpower now compared to the number of planes in service. A final decision on the quantum of layoffs is expected this week, one of the officials in the know said.
Airlines to nearly double bilateral utilisation to 40% from April
PIA management had signed an agreement with Saudi Airlines and Eithad Airways as well as private airlines, Air Blue and Shaheen Airlines, to facilitate travel by its passengers with confirmed bookings.
The country's leading low-cost air carriers -- IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir -- are set to nearly double their fleet capacity over the next 17 months.
Chinese state TV reported USS George Washington would pass through the "Huangyan islands", also claimed by the Philippines as Scarborough Shoal, while analysts expressed concern over the US nuclear powered super carrier passing through "Chinese waters".
By cutting international flights, Indian firms forefeit market share.
The Indian Navy, which was earlier looking towards the US for design expertise, technical know-how and operational practices, is now considering the advantages of working with the Royal Navy.
This isn't the first instance of Vistara facing scrutiny from the regulator over improper pilot training.
The economic slowdown has made companies look at low-cost carriers with new respect. As a result, corporate travellers now constitute over 35 per cent of the traffic on LCCs, up from ten per cent a year ago. This has caused LCCs to record passenger load factor in excess of 70 per cent, though overall traffic has fallen 10 per cent in the last one year. Full-service carriers, in contrast, are known to have lower PLF of around 60 per cent.
India and the United States have started discussions to jointly develop a next-generation aircraft carrier to bolster the Indian Navy's blue-water capabilities, a top Pentagon official has said.
Noted security expert Ashley J Tellis has said that it was imperative for India and the United States to collaborate on developing the former's naval capability by developing next-generation aircraft carriers.
India is ready to give Gulf carriers more routes and seats provided its airlines are given the same on the lucrative India-UAE route, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel has said. Various Gulf carriers are seeking access to more cities as well as increased seats but "we have asked them to give more seats to us since there are more Indian carriers now seeking rights to fly to this sector," he told PTI in an interview.
Lower taxes on ATF on international routes certainly help in making operations more viable.
In a post on the microblogging platform 'X' on Saturday, passenger Vineeth K said that even though he was getting cheaper fares with Gulf carrier Etihad, he had opted for Air India as it operates a non-stop service to the US.
Full-service airlines may have been making huge losses in India, but Tata Sons and Jet Airways are raring to give the model a second chance.
After allowing FDI by foreign carriers in their Indian counterparts, the government has put in place provisions to prevent Indian airlines from being controlled and managed by the foreign investor.
Private airport developers in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, say landing and parking fees account for a significant proportion of revenues, so offering these services free would be unviable.
