The Delhi High Court on Wednesday allowed a plea to implead DGCA as a party to a PIL seeking quashing of approvals being granted by the Centre to operationalise the $30 million deal between Tata Sons and Malaysia-based AirAsia.
India's domestic air passenger traffic nearly doubled to 1.25 crore in January compared to 64.08 lakh recorded in the year-ago period, according to official data released on Monday. In January, IndiGo saw its domestic market share decline for the fifth consecutive month at 54.6 per cent. It carried 68.47 lakh passengers last month.
Air India and IndiGo have already suspended Kamra from flying until further notice and six months, respectively.
Days after low-cost carrier AirAsia announced it would launch its India operations by the end of the year, IndiGo Airlines President Aditya Ghosh, 38, tells Sudipto Dey in an interaction why his airline is not one that should be worried.
Investigators said the system that helps control the movement of the aircraft's rudder had a cracked solder joint that malfunctioned four times during the flight.
The 30-day visa-free entry is also currently enjoyed by eight ASEAN countries for the purpose of social visits, tourism and business.
Domestic airlines flew 1.29 crore passengers in April, a rise of more than 22 per cent compared to the year-ago period, according to official data released on Friday. However, the domestic air traffic number last month at 128.88 lakh was marginally lower than the 128.93 lakh recorded in March. In April 2022, the number of passengers carried by airlines stood at 105.47 lakh.
Akasa Air's plane occupancy, or load factor, improved the most among all major carriers in April compared to the last month. Load factor signifies the percentage of seats that the airline has been able to fill in its planes. The Vinay Dube-led carrier, which started commercial flights in August last year, saw its load factor jump by more than 11 per cent in April, according to the Ministry of Civil Aviation's data
Don't look for a single cause -- a combination of factors is needed to bring down any plane, says Shakti Lumba
Zudio was the standout performer as it tapped into the pentup demand in small-town India, at a pace never seen before, notes Indrajit Gupta, co-founder and director, Founding Fuel.
Air India will require more than 6,500 pilots to operate 470 aircraft that are to be supplied by Airbus and Boeing in the coming years, according to industry sources. Seeking to expand fleet as well as operations, the airline has placed orders for acquiring a total of 840 aircraft that includes an option to buy 370 planes. This is one of the largest aircraft order by any airline. Currently, Air India has around 1,600 pilots to operate its 113 aircraft fleet and in recent times, there have been instances of ultra-long haul flights getting cancelled or delayed due to shortage of crew.
On July 25 and 26, the regulator's team carried out the surveillance of Air India in the areas of internal audit, accident prevention work and availability of required technical manpower.
Indian carriers transported 12.8 million domestic passengers in March 2023, a year-on-year growth of 21.41 per cent. India's largest carrier IndiGo shored up its domestic market share from 53.8 per cent in Q4 of FY22 to 55.7 per cent in Q4 of FY23, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data released on Monday.
Singapore Airlines on Tuesday said Vistara will be merged with Tata group-owned Air India. Tata group owns a 51 per cent stake in Vistara, and the remaining 49 per cent shareholding is with Singapore Airlines (SIA). As part of the transaction, SIA will also invest Rs 2,058.5 crore in Air India.
Singapore Airlines (SIA) is engaged in confidential talks with Tata Sons for merging Vistara with Air India, the flagship carrier of the Republic of Singapore informed the stock exchange in the Southeast Asian nation on Thursday in a first acknowledgement of a possible integration of the two airlines. "In line with its multi-hub strategy, SIA is currently in confidential discussions with the Tatas to explore a potential transaction in relation to the securities of Vistara and Air India. "The discussions seek to deepen the existing partnership between SIA and Tatas and may include a potential integration of Vistara and Air India," SIA said in a notification to the Singapore stock exchange. SIA owns 49 per cent stake in Vistara and is among the four airlines run by Tata Group.
The Air India Group has started vacating its offices, which are currently being operated from government-owned properties, from this month, as part of its strategy to consolidate workspaces across the country. The loss-making Air India and its international budget arm Air India Express were taken over by the Tata Group on January 27 this year, after successfully winning the bid for the airline on October 8, last year. Besides these two airlines, Tata Group also holds a majority 51 per cent stake in Vistara, its joint venture airline with Singapore Airlines (SIA), and a 83.67 per cent stake in budget carrier, AirAsia India.
IndiGo's size should be compared with global carriers, and not other domestic airlines, chief executive officer Pieter Elbers said on Tuesday, adding that such benchmarking will help India transform its airports into aviation hubs. Elbers flagged the tendency to scrutinise domestic competition, assess fares on domestic routes, and determine if they are high. "But if we want to build some hubs, we should have a broader look," he said during a panel discussion at a convention organised by All India Management Association (AIMA).
The Tata Group-owned Air India has readied a five-year transformation plan, which is expected to take its domestic market share to 30 per cent, up from 8.4 per cent logged in June. IndiGo leads with a market share of 58.8 per cent. The transformation plan--Vihaan.AI-unveiled on Thursday revolves around tripling the domestic market share with investments in new aircraft, technology and improvements in customer service.
Crisis-hit Go First has sought various interim directions from the National Company Law Tribunal, including restraining lessors from taking back aircraft and regulator DGCA from taking any adverse action against the airline. The Wadia group-owned airline, which has liabilities worth Rs 11,463 crore, has sought voluntary insolvency resolution proceedings and the plea is set to be heard by the Delhi bench of the NCLT on Thursday. Go First has cancelled all its flights for three days starting from May 3.
Air India on Monday announced a new compensation structure for its pilots and cabin crew, with a guaranteed flying allowance of 40 hours per month for both categories of staff. While the flying allowance has been doubled for pilots, it has been introduced for flight attendants as part of the new compensation structure. Pilots will earn an additional amount as a reward based on the number of years of service with the airline and get an allowance while undergoing training for command or conversion to another aircraft type.
Tata Group, which will now include Air India, Vistara, and Air Asia, has the highest market share of departures on the top 10 routes in the country. According to the data from Caladrius Aero Consulting, which tracked the departure data for eight airlines in August and September, Tata Group is ahead on all the top 10 routes ranked in accordance with the number of departures in August-September 2021. On the top 100 routes in terms of departures, Tata Group is ahead of its chief rival IndiGo on 30 of them.
It offers a real opportunity for the flag carrier to compete on the world stage, backed by a leading conglomerate with deep pockets like the Tatas, observes Indrajit Gupta.
Tata Group-owned Air India, under its new chief executive officer and managing director Campbell Wilson, is optimising its domestic strategy under which the carrier is "densifying" its presence on metro-to-metro routes and exiting from unviable ones, Business Standard has learnt. Wilson took charge on July 25. Air India has increased its flights on metro-to-metro routes such as Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Bengaluru, Mumbai-Chennai, Mumbai-Bengaluru, and Hyderabad-Mumbai between June and November this year.
Due to the group's presence across multiple businesses, it is in a unique position in the aviation industry to bring the best of talents.
Management and leadership changes, in addition to synchronising operations between all its airlines, are showing visible results for Air India. Data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) show that there has been a marked improvement in key operational parameters of Air India after the Tata group took complete control of the national airline in January. One of the most dramatic improvements has been noticed in Air India's passenger load factor (PLF) - a crucial metric of capacity utilisation of an airline's fleet that shows how many seats it has been able to fill on every flight.
They say better late than never. For the Tatas, the original owners of Air India, bringing back the airline to its fold is worth the wait even if the attempt to privatise the bleeding national carrier by successive governments has taken over two decades. While many airlines have come and gone from the Indian skies since the time when the first move was made to privatise Air India to date, the salt-to-software conglomerate has never let the love affair with aviation, more so with Air India that its former chairman Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (JRD) had, to go off the radar. It is said that Tata group executives used to complain in private that JRD -- the pioneer of the Indian aviation industry -- spent more time worrying about Air India than the Tata group when he was heading both the entities.
Domestic air passenger volume spiked 70.46 per cent in October to 89.85 lakh over the same month of 2020, DGCA data showed on Thursday. The Indian carriers had flown 52.71 lakh passengers in October last year. It may be recalled that domestic traffic along with international flight services remained shut for two months until May 25, 2020, when scheduled air services were resumed in a graded manner.
The new alliance will help the Tatas realise their long-cherished dream of flying abroad, while Singapore Airlines will get a foothold in the expanding Indian market
With better utilisation of slots, foreign flying rights, and greater international connections, the operator of India's largest airport feels a privatised Air India will bring commercial benefit to Delhi airport and help it revive quicker from the pandemic shock. Delhi is the largest hub for Air India, with most of its long-haul flights to the US and Europe being operated from here. The airport plans to give its most modern terminal 3 (T3) exclusively to the Tata Group.
Around 1.12 crore domestic passengers travelled by air in December, approximately 6.7 per cent higher than the 1.05 crore who travelled in November, the country's aviation regulator said on Wednesday. Overall, 8.38 crore people travelled on domestic flights in 2021 as compared to 6.3 crore in 2020, showing a jump of 33 per cent, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stated in its monthly statement. IndiGo -- India's largest carrier -- carried 61.41 lakh passengers in December, a 54.8 per cent share of the domestic market, it mentioned.
From croissants to Galouti kebabs and Medu vada, Indian carriers, both low-cost and full-service, are revising their in-flight menus to offer passengers a differentiated fare as competition is heating up amid the boom in air travel with the waning of Covid-19. On Monday, Air India, which was taken over by the Tata Group on January 27, unveiled its new domestic in-flight menu comprising gourmet meals, new appetizers, desserts, and local dishes. Air India's economy class passengers would now be served dishes such as Mushroom cheese omelette, Dry jeera aloo wedges, and Garlic tossed spinach and corn for breakfast, and Vegetable biryani, Malabar chicken curry, and mixed vegetable poriyal for lunch.
Airline flight attendants reveal the craziest requests they have received from passengers!
The letter shared with the media on Saturday comes amid Maharashtra losing several big-ticket projects to neighbouring Gujarat.
The city's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) has decide to once again consolidate its flight operations to one terminal -- T2 -- from April 21 amid the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the city.
The load factor of six major domestic airlines--IndiGo, SpiceJet, Air India, GoAir, Vistara and AirAsia India -- stood between 70 per cent and 64.9 per cent in January.
Tata Group chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran on Thursday said the group's recently launched super app Neu is on an open architecture and it will host non-group brands as well. The Tatas finally launched its super app Tata Neu on April 7, after piloting it for months, but the group chairman claimed there was no delay in the commercial launch. Stating that the app has received an overwhelming response in the past seven days of going live, Chandrasekaran said the app is on an open architecture and will host products and services from non-Tata group companies.
Airlines such as IndiGo, Air India, Vistara and AirAsia India have decided to go with the new attire to ensure safety of cabin crew members as they are in close proximity to passengers during flights
Jet Airways will operate flights with female cabin crew members in its start-up phase and hire male cabin crew members once it reaches a certain operational scale, the airline said on Sunday. It will be following the footsteps of Vistara, which had started hiring male cabin crew in March 2018, approximately three years after it was launched. Jet Airways, which has not flown since April 17, 2019, is currently in the process of re-launching operations under its new promoters Jalan-Kalrock Consortium. Aviation veteran Sanjiv Kapoor took charge as the chief executive officer of the airline on April 4.
People have said they would be inclined to travel for leisure during the festival and year-end season.
IndiGo had the best on-time performance (OTP) of 95.4 per cent at four metro airports in February, while Go First secured the number two position with 94.1 per cent in the same month, according to data released by aviation regulator DGCA. Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai were the four airports where Indigo had the best OTP, the data released on Monday said. In January, the situation was inverse as Go First had logged the best OTP of 94.5 per cent at the four airports while IndiGo was at number two with 93.9 per cent OTP.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances