Navy divers on Monday resumed efforts to find more wreckage of the ill-fated AirAsia jet with no signal detected yet from the black box recorders, as rescue teams expanded search eastward to locate large objects of the plane believed to be on the ocean floor.
The tail section of the AirAsia flight that went down more than a week ago was found on Wednesday in the Java Sea, raising hopes that the plane's black boxes might soon be recovered to determine the cause of the mysterious crash.
Inching closer to launch its operations, new no-frill carrier AirAsia India on Saturday took delivery of its first Airbus A-320 as it landed in Chennai after flying in from Toulouse headquarters of the European aircraft manufacturer.
Though the Mumbai and Delhi airports still rule the domestic aviation market, the share of the two in overall traffic is falling. In 2006-07, the two airports collectively handled 40.6 per cent of all domestic passengers; in 2012-13, their share fell to 37 per cent.
National carrier Air India became part of the 27-member global airlines grouping Star Alliance, as budget airline AirAsia India launched operations and Tata-SIA joint venture carrier Vistara received the flying permit and announced its intentions to start operations from January 9.
Divers on Tuesday retrieved the cockpit voice recorder and may have located the fuselage of the crashed AirAsia jet in the Java Sea as experts will now use data from the two crucial black box devices to determine the sequence of events that brought the flight down. The cockpit voice recorder, that possesses the last two hours of conversation between the pilots and with air traffic controllers, was found close to where the flight data recorder was recovered from the bottom of the choppy waters on Monday.
The AirAsia aircraft that went missing after taking off from Indonesia with 162 people on board may be at the bottom of the sea, a top Indonesian official said on Monday, as the multinational search for the Airbus continued amid fading hopes of finding any survivors.
The government is keeping its options open.
The national carrier's market share has declined from a near-monopoly to 16.6 per cent as of September 2014.
Most airlines have fattened their profits, turned the corner, or cut their losses, except AirAsia India.
An AirAsia flight from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people aboard reportedly went missing on Sunday morning after losing contact with air traffic controllers.
This was good enough for Fernandes to hire Chandilya to lead his India business.