Veterans in the travel industry, a well-known corporate lawyer, and a marquee US-based hedge fund have backed the upcoming low-cost airline Akasa Air. Founded by former Jet Airways chief executive officer (CEO) Vinay Dube, the venture counts ace stock trader and investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala as its biggest financial backer with an investment of around Rs 300 crore. A person with knowledge of the development said most of the people were well known to Jhunjhunwala and Dube, who approached them during the conception stage.
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.
The trails of mega-mergers, tailwinds of expanding fleets, flights and airports will dot the fast-growing Indian aviation firmament in 2025, though the dark clouds of supply chain woes will persist longer. Also, new airline takeoffs, the future trajectory of revised norms to tackle pilot fatigue and efforts to reduce carbon emissions will be on the radar.
Airline systems across airports, which were impacted due to a global IT outage on Friday, have started working normally, and all issues are likely to be resolved by noon on Saturday, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said. The ministry is constantly monitoring the operations at airports and airlines to ensure travel readjustments and refunds are taken care of, he added.
IndiGo on Wednesday said it was exploring an earlier introduction of wide-body planes in its fleet to meet the growing demand for international travel. Industry sources said the airline was in talks with Norse Atlantic Airways to wet-lease six B787 planes in its fleet.
The move follows the recent probe report by the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) that highlighted safety concerns involving Boeing 737 aircraft equipped with Collins Aerospace SVO-730 Rudder Rollout Guidance Actuators.
In 14 days, more than 350 flights operated by the Indian carriers have received hoax bomb threats. Most of the threats were issued through social media.
The threats via microblogging platform X came a day after three international flights originating from Mumbai received bomb threats, causing trouble to hundreds of passengers and airline crew.
Taking hoax bomb-threat messages and calls seriously, the government has started identifying those behind the menace and asked social media platforms like Meta and X to share data on such messages, sources said.
The Tatas have collectively increased their aggregate airlines seat capacity across domestic and international markets by an impressive 20 per cent, going from 64.03 million in calendar year (CY) 2023 to 76.72 million in the current CY, according to data shared by the group that controls Air India in which Vistara has been merged recently. The Tatas also run Air India Express in which Air Asia India has been merged.
Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed new airline Akasa is in talks with US aerospace company Boeing for buying up to 100 737 Max aircraft. Former Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube and his family members are promoters while ex-IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh is a board member of the airline. The airline is in negotiation with Boeing and has reached out to the government to recertify the aircraft which has been grounded since 2018 after two crashes killing 349 persons, according to sources in the know.
Shubham Upadhyay, a resident of Uttam Nagar in the national capital, was arrested for posting two bomb threat messages to draw attention after seeing similar news reports on TV, the police said.
The pattern of domestic airlines receiving bomb threats to their flights continued for the fourth day as two international flights, one each of Vistara and IndiGo, were targeted in the similar manner on Thursday.
On Friday, the Alaska Airlines plane's outer section, including a window, fell off mid-air.
In the past few days, more than 40 flights operated by the Indian carriers have received bomb threats which later turned out to be hoaxes.
'Airlines are aware that during peak times like Diwali, demand will be high, so prices remain steep even for tickets purchased 90 days ahead.'
Airports across the country witnessed chaotic scenes on Friday after dozens of flights were either delayed or cancelled after a widespread global computer outage that also hit operations like cash withdrawal at some banks, and impacted functioning of some brokerages. Globally, the Microsoft cloud outage led to US airlines cancelling flights, but the tech giant later reportedly said its cloud services outage in the Central US region has been resolved.
In little over a year, Air India and IndiGo have announced plans to purchase up to 170 wide-body planes as they bet on ambitious expansion and efforts also continue to make India a global aviation hub. Also, the two carriers' orders usher in European aircraft maker Airbus into the country's wide-body space, which has traditionally been dominated by US major Boeing. If narrow-body aircraft orders of Air India, IndiGo and Akasa Air are added to the list, the order book is well over 1,200 planes and that too in less than 14 months or since February 2023.
Amid a massive global outage that hit operations of airlines, banks and businesses across the globe, Microsoft on Friday said that it is aware of the issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform.
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.
The expansion of existing airports and development of new airports will continue expeditiously, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday and emphasised that the country's aviation sector has been galvanised in the past 10 years.
'I don't think I was prepared for a platform like Bigg Boss.'
The India meteorological department (IMD) on Wednesday evening issued a red alert for Mumbai and its neighbouring districts, predicting "extremely heavy rainfall".
Flight operations at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport were suspended twice for a brief period due to inclement weather and low visibility, a source said.
'Within five years, we should be achieving more on the international front than what it took most airlines 15 to 20 years back.'
Airfares have nearly doubled in a matter of days on routes hit by the cancellation of 200 weekly flights linking Mumbai airport to 12 cities. The fares have soared as high as 193 per cent following a recent government order to cancel flights to ease "persistent congestion" that was causing delays. Aside from the reduction in flights on 12 routes, two destinations - Hubli and Jabalpur - have lost connectivity with Mumbai since last week, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium's data reviewed
Among the impacted flights, Air India's flight AI 185 from the national capital to Vancouver that was to depart early in the morning was rescheduled.
The safety and security of citizens is primary for the government, he said.
New airline Akasa Air on Thursday took delivery of the first 737 Max aircraft from Boeing in Seattle, USA, a statement said.
The on-time performance (OTP) of Indian carriers took a major dip in January as dense fog foiled their flight schedules. According to data from the Ministry of Civil Aviation reviewed by Business Standard, five out of six major Indian carriers - IndiGo, Air India, AIX Connect, Akasa Air, and Vistara - recorded their lowest OTPs in at least the last 11 months. In response to queries, an Air India spokesperson said that during this winter, northern India experienced unusually prolonged periods of dense fog affecting traffic at the airline's two largest hubs -- Delhi and Mumbai.
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.
Strong crosswinds and heavy rains with thunder and lightning impacted flight operations from 4.05 pm to 4.51 pm, an airport official said.
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).
Some aircraft technicians at IndiGo are on sick leave since Friday demanding a revision in salaries. The protest comes days after the airline partially restored salaries of its pilots and cabin crew and made changes to its human resource (HR) policies. Some technicians in Hyderabad reported sick on Friday night while those from other bases skipped work on Sunday demanding a revision in salary, an industry source said.
Jhunjhunwala passed away early on Sunday morning due to a cardiac arrest, a source in his newly set up airline said.
Tata Group-owned AirAsia India, which is in the process of being merged with Air India Express, has taken short-term loans worth Rs 630 crore during the last six months to deal with cash crunch. AirAsia India has been making losses since its first commercial flight on June 12, 2014. Its net loss increased by 42 per cent to Rs 2,178 crore in FY22.
Tejasswi calls Bigg Boss her boyfriend!
The inactivity of Go First may help other airlines in India's competitive market as it had a 7.8 per cent market share.
'Our focus is not going to be metro to metro routes.' 'We will begin by focusing on metro to non-metro (routes).' 'Metro to tier-2 cities or tier-3 cities is where there is a lot of space for affordable, efficient carriers.'
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