In March 2020, soon after the cessation of airline operations globally and domestic flights within India, many in the aviation sector had written Delhi-headquartered low-fare airline SpiceJet's obituary well before that of most of its rivals. Unlike IndiGo, GoAir (now rechristened Go First), Vistara and even AirAsia India, SpiceJet did not have founders or backers with deep pockets. Although it is the only other listed carrier in India besides IndiGo, it was considered the weakest and the least likely to survive the pandemic. But chairman and managing director Ajay Singh surprised everyone by not only surviving but taking the lead on many fronts. Within a few weeks of the scheduled flight stoppage, SpiceJet was doing as many charter flights as it could get hold of.
Air India will be saving $150 million over 15 years by mounting advanced General Electric engines GE90-115B on its 27 Boeing 777-300ERs aircraft.
Gaikwad was travelling from Pune to New Delhi when the scuffle broke out over the sitting arrangement.
'It is not as bad an airline as it is made out to be: We serve wonderful food, the leg space is more, our cabin crew is warm and friendly.' 'The customer needs to be apprised of these things.'
Two issues dog the sale of the national carrier. One is the $2 billion bank guarantee the winning bidder will need to furnish. The other is the nearly 5000 lawsuits filed against Air India, many of them overseas. Anjuli Bhargava reports.
Employees can be sent on LWP for six months or for a period of two years extendable up to five years, depending upon the following factors - suitability, efficiency, competence, quality of performance, health of the employee, instance of non-availability of the employee for duty in the past as a result of ill health or otherwise and redundancy.
Pusapati was given detailed presentations on various aspects of the sector by senior officials of the Ministry.
'With a less than comely bride and no dowry to speak of, the prospects of landing a good match look bleak, a grim, sinister and no-nonsense prospective father-in-law notwithstanding,' says Anjuli Bhargava.
"Unless he tenders an unconditional apology to AI employees, and undertakes in writing to abide by the Chicago and Tokyo Conventions & Rules of the Air and follow all cabin safety and public behaviour norms, we must not let him on board," says the letter.
'Our production capacity ramp-up initiatives are expected to meet the critical requirements of our armed forces.'
Falling jet fuel prices and a revival in domestic traffic growth offer the new CMD a once in a lifetime opportunity.
The victim, R Sukumar said that the MP should be punished so that they should not take it as their birthright to assault a person.
The board meeting of the state-owned airlines was also attended by Arvind Jadhav, for the first time since he took over as Nacil CMD after the sudden exit of erstwhile chairman Raghu Menon from the company. However, sources in the company said no final decision could be taken as the issue would be discussed with the new government and the civil aviation ministry.
Air India needs to up the ante in order to compete with rival carriers.
AI also working on proposal to trim pilots' pay 15-20%
The CMD's focus on raising employee morale and cutting costs is paying off. The airline's operating losses have shrunk and earnings are looking up
In one step forward, the Civil Aviation Ministry on Wednesday met for the first time to decide on allowing the Airbus A-380s to operate at some airports, years after some major foreign carriers sought the right to fly these superjumbos to India.
The letter was sent as an early warning of what was then widely being perceived as a plunder of national resources.
The panel, which is a sub-committee of the Air India board, was set up on Tuesday following which the executive pilots withdrew their five-day long agitation against slashing of their productivity-linked incentive and flying allowance by half.
Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav requested all executives in the level of general managers and above to voluntarily forego salaries and incentives for July as a gesture to ease the liquidity crunch faced by the airline, an Air India spokesperson told PTI. The airline is facing a possible industrial unrest with employees threatening agitation in case their June salary is not given by this month-end.
Air India CMD Vasudevan Thulasidas said the combined entity will have a change management consultant which will enable employees to be IT-savvy.
The announcement by Air India CMD Rohit Nandan came on a day when two of the airline's six Dreamliners resumed commercial operations and operated regular flights from Delhi to Bengaluru and Kolkata.
The development comes four days ahead of the launch of a training programme for pilots to fly the Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
After Frankfurt, the airline may opt for Munich as its other base in Europe. "Air India would ideally want to have both Frankfurt and Munich as European hubs as the airline does not want to vacate Frankfurt and also wants to establish Munich as a hub for operations after network expansion plans come through," said an Air-India official close to the development, not wanting to be quoted.
The employees, holding Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav responsible for the present condition of the airline, also demanded his removal and regularisation of the payment of their due salary and productivity linked incentive.
The Boeing Company's proposed MRO base in Nagpur for maintenance and repair of aircraft may have another partner in addition to state-owned carrier Air India.
A Boeing team of experts would be flying to India to assess the situation arising out of a series of faults in Air India's Dreamliner aircraft, even as the airline insisted that the aircraft is safe.
Four committees had been set up in August under various functional directors of the airline, each focusing on a specific segment of the PLI to review the entire issue of performance payments after the unions rejected a 50 per cent 'unilateral' cut proposed by the National Aviation Company of India Limited management.
The air hostess compared the executive with the Hollywood film maker charged with sexual misconduct by leading actresses.
"I recently flew on one of our aircraft and I was pleasantly surprised. Our aeroplanes are brand new and a pleasure to travel on. They can give any airline a run for their money," says Raghu Menon.
'The Indian gung-ho leadership may like to think about it, there should never ever be a doubt in anyone's mind, friend or foe, that Pakistan's operationally ready nuclear capability enables every Pakistani leader the liberty, the dignity and the courage to look straight into the Indian eye and never blink.'
Giovanni Bisignani, CEO of International Air Transport Association, said Delhi and Mumbai airports were one of the worst contributors to the crisis, for their 207 per cent hike in charges. "There is no room for this nonsense in our future. When demand drops, suppliers cannot divide the same costs among fewer customers. The shape of everything must change," he declared.
The Federation of Indian Airlines, the group formed by various carriers, has appointed Amitabh Khosla from CII as Executive Director to head its secretariat and plans to have a Director General later.
The ban on Gaikwad was revoked last Friday after a letter from the ministry of civil aviation "advised" it to do so.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited on Wednesday handed over the first LCA Tejas twin-seater aircraft to the Indian Air Force.
The Sena also asked why the government was only talking about discipline while flying and not on the ground as well, and why the Centre does not threaten to dissolve a state assembly when there is even one incident of farmer suicide.
State-run aerospace behemoth Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) on Thursday said it has received a Request for Proposal (RFP) from the Indian Air Force for basic trainer HTT-40.
Ending suspense over the appointment of Air-India MD, the government said on Friday that Sunil Arora, chairman and managing director of Indian Airlines would assume additional charge of the international airline.
Jhulan gets promotion after World Cup super show
The ATR 72-600 aircraft was accorded water salute as it landed at the Jaffna airport, about 400-km from capital Colombo.
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