An exclusive excerpt from The Tatas: How A Family Built A Business And A Nation.
Air India will soon have a new crew management system that will help strengthen rostering rules and enable faster recovery from scheduled disruptions. In a message to the staff on Friday, Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson said that in the next two weeks, there will be the CAE Crew Management System that will "strengthen our systems' adherence to rostering rules, improving the tracking of training & qualifications, and enabling faster recovery from schedule disruptions". The new system also comes against the backdrop of concerns flagged by pilots' unions about rostering issues.
In an interview with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Aireen Omar, chief executive officer of AirAsia Bhd, talks about the company's strengths, opportunities and challenges.
The Foreign Investment Promotion Board on March 6 cleared the Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia's bid to launch an airline in India by joining hands with Tata Sons.
The hotel brand goes by the 'great value, great savings' tagline.
Rescuers on Sunday recovered another body and a fifth large object belonging to the doomed AirAsia jet in the JavaSea as they continued to scour the choppy waters for the eighth day.
Low-cost positioning is passe. Brand experts suggest ways in which the airline can differentiate itself in the minds of customers.
The company is looking at putting in one plane every month.
AirAsia India, whose top officials have promised to offer low and competitive airfares, will focus on connecting tier-II cities to begin with.
An AirAsia flight from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people aboard reportedly went missing on Sunday morning after losing contact with air traffic controllers.
The aviation regulator slapped fines amounting to Rs 2.75 crore on Indian airlines in 2023, marking a 39 per cent rise in financial penalties from Rs 1.97 crore in 2022. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said it imposed fines on domestic carriers such as Air India, IndiGo, AirAsia India and SpiceJet for issues related to non-compliance in 2023. The regulator also carried out a record number of 5,745 surveillance activities in the year to ensure compliance by airlines, aerodrome operators, and aviation personnel among others.
Rescuers found 30 bodies with 5 of them still strapped to their seats as multi-national teams equipped with sophisticated equipment narrowed the search to a 5 sq km area of the choppy Java Sea where some debris of the ill-fated AirAsia jet have emerged.
Maverick entrepreneur Tony Fernandes, who built low-cost carrier AirAsia to be a formidable player in South-East Asia, is prepared for a price battle in the Indian skies.
After three days of intense search, debris of the missing AirAsia aircraft carrying 162 people was found on Tuesday in the Java Sea off Indonesia but only three bodies have been retrieved so far as the mystery remained over the cause of the crash.
The sister of Remi Plesel, the French co-pilot of the doomed AirAsia flight QZ8501, said that aviation was his passion.
Divers on Thursday searched the sunken fuselage of the crashed AirAsia jet in the JavaSea to retrieve the missing bodies of the 162 people killed in the disaster, a day after the main wreck was located in the choppy waters after over two weeks of multi-national hunt.
New DGCA rules stipulate airlines have to apply for permit at least 90 days before launch
The AirAsia flight that went down into the Java Sea, killing all 162 people onboard, ascended too fast before coming to a halt, Indonesia's transport minister has said.
The aircraft is likely to announce two new routes next week.
The possible change in the airline's earlier decision is apparently due to various factors, the key being its relationship with the state government. Other states are a lot more interested and excited in having it.
Malaysia's popular no-frills airline, AirAsia, has said it will give away two million free seats to mark its fourth anniversary, a media report said in Kuala Lumpur.
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.
Searchers using sonar equipment on Wednesday located the wreckage of the ill-fated AirAsia plane carrying 162 people at the bottom of the Java Sea off Indonesia, even as bad weather hampered the recovery of many bloated bodies seen floating around the crash site.
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.
Divers on Monday retrieved the crucial flight data recorder of the AirAsia plane from the Java Sea in a potential breakthrough to solve the mystery of the crash, as an Indonesian official said the jet 'exploded' on impact with the water due to rapid change in pressure.
The reported buyback of Temasek's 20 per cent stake in Tata Play by Tata Sons will be the third instance of Tata Group providing an exit to a foreign partner in recent years. In 2018, Tata Sons paid $1.27 billion to DoCoMo to buy back 26 per cent of the group's telecommunication venture, Tata Teleservices. This was followed by Tata Sons acquiring AirAsia Berhad's 49 per cent stake in AirAsia India in two tranches to make it a wholly owned subsidiary.
Air India Express on Thursday cancelled 85 flights or around 23 per cent of the total daily capacity as the disruptions due to the cabin crew shortage continue and said Air India will operate services on 20 of its routes to minimise inconvenience to passengers.
Indian airlines will operate a total of 23,732 flights every week during the winter schedule, which is more than 8 per cent higher than the year-ago period, amid rising air traffic demand. The winter schedule 2023 -- effective from October 29 to March 30 next year -- for the scheduled carriers has been approved by aviation regulator DGCA. Go First, which stopped flying from May 3 and is undergoing an insolvency resolution process, will not be having any operations during the winter schedule.
The airline's entry may trigger charges for every extra service such as baggage and seat selection.
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.
Budget airline AIX Connect has removed its manager from duty at Bengaluru airport following the incident of a flight taking off without Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot last week, a source said on Monday.
AirAsia has grand plansfor India.
India has put on standby three ships and a maritime surveillance aircraft for assistance in the search operation after an AirAsia flight with 162 people on board on Sunday went missing en route from Indonesia to Singapore after losing contact with air traffic controllers.
Low cost carrier AirAsia is likely to start operations in India by year-end.
Tiruchirapalli was AirAsia's first destination in India since its inception on December 1 last year.
Both parties will discuss the issues and there will be a meeting again on May 28, he said.
Discontent has been brewing among a section of the cabin crew at the low-cost carrier for some time now, especially after the start of the process of merger of AIX Connect, formerly AirAsia India, with itself.
Domestic air traffic rose 4.8 per cent on an annual basis to 126.48 lakh in February, while more than 1.55 lakh passengers were affected by flight delays during the same period, according to official data released on Friday. In February, Air India's market share rose to 12.8 per cent from 12.2 per cent while that of IndiGo marginally dipped to 60.1 per cent from 60.2 per cent in January. The domestic air traffic climbed to 126.48 lakh in February compared to 120.69 lakh in the year-ago period, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said.
Some airline sources, however, fear it will reduce overall yields
Fernandes said south India was a fantastic market and it would be the gateway for people who want to visit southeast Asia and beyond.
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