When the Tatas re-boarded Air India on January 27 last year, the price of aviation turbine fuel was at over Rs 80,000 per kilolitre. Rupee was trading at around Rs 74 to a US dollar. The Omicron variant of Covid-19 was in prevalence - barely a week earlier, India had reported over 340,000 cases on a single day. Seven-day home quarantine of international travellers was the norm.
As many as 19 flights have received bomb threats in three days and a Riyadh-bound IndiGo flight was diverted to Muscat due to the threat, according to officials.
Vikrant Massey lost his family friend, Clive Kunder, in the tragic Air India plane crash on June 12.
No response has been received for the Expression of Interest floated for the strategic divestment of Air India
Two aborted missions, three different ministers, multiple rule changes and two decades later, Indian taxpayers will no longer have to pay Rs 20 crore per day to keep the loss-making Air India flying. While opposition Congress expectedly attacked the decision as selling the family silver, DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said what Tata is getting is not a cash cow but an airline which is bleeding where money needs to be pumped in to refurbish obsolete aircraft and dust up strangled ones while being unable to touch any employee for one year and only be able to resize staff after paying a VRS. "It won't be a very easy task there. Only advantage is they (new Air India owner) are paying the price which they think they can manage. "They are not taking the excessive debt accumulated to fund years of losses. We are continuing it as an ongoing concern.... This process has also saved huge amount of taxpayers money going forward," Pandey told PTI.
Virtually addressing employees of Air India across the globe, he said for the airline to be the best again there will be an organisational redesign, and it will "require a huge transformation, probably the largest transformation and the change all of you would ever go through". The carrier will expand its "outreach both domestically and internationally" and it has the desire to connect India with every part of the globe, he added.
Two unions representing Air India pilots have asked members not to accept the revised compensation and employment offer, calling the company's proposals "unfair labour practices." They said any coercion on pilots to sign the offer would lead to industrial unrest. The Tata group airline announced on Monday a new salary structure for pilots and cabin crew.
Echoing United States President Donald Trump's stance on imposing economic sanctions against countries maintaining trade ties with Russia if Moscow doesn't put an end to the conflict in Ukraine, North Atlantic Treaty Organisaiton (NATO) Secretary General Mark Rutte on Tuesday (local time) urged India, China, and Brazil to reconsider their economic relations with Russia, warning of potential secondary sanctions, reported Reuters.
The Supreme Court has expressed concern over the increasing pollution levels during winter and has suggested that the Punjab government arrest farmers who engage in stubble burning. The court believes that this action would send a strong message and help curb air pollution.
With the finding of both black boxes of the plane, it would be easy for investigators to ascertain the cause of the crash.
Air India pilot unions IPG and ICPA on Monday sought Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri's intervention on the wage cut issue and also requested for an "urgent" meeting with him on several other issues. "In our meetings in September, you had given us an assurance to look into our grievances positively. "While other airlines are rolling back the austerity pay cuts for their pilots, the wage cut for Air India pilots further increased from October.
Twenty-year-old Nganthoi, who was a cabin crew member for the last three years, was among the 242 people onboard Air India Flight AI 171, which crashed minutes after take-off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad on Thursday.
The government proposes to divest 76 per cent of Air India, along with its shareholding in Air India Express and its ground-handling subsidiary, AISATS.
Addressing close to 700 employees and the leadership team across the Air India headquarters and Air India Training Academy in Gurugram, Chandrasekaran urged them to stay on course, terming the accident the most "heartbreaking" crisis of his career.
Government officials say a shareholding structure has been mandated to discourage non-serious bidders from accessing Air India's data room
Weighed down by surging jet fuel prices, Air-India's net profit plunged by a huge 82.54 per cent at Rs 16.29 crore (Rs 162.9 million) for the year 2005-06.
Apart from the main company, five of Air India's subsidiaries and a joint venture firm have been included in the strategic sale plan.
'CORSIA has set impossible targets. It tries to limit countries to the emission levels of the number of aircraft that they had in 2020. That has to be opposed.'
The pilots have been "derostered" pending investigation, Air India Express later said in a statement.
Parulkar was commissioned in the IAF in March 1963. In past, he held various appointments, including as a Flying Instructor at the Air Force Academy, according to the excerpt.
With over 700,000 annual passengers and 21 per cent market share Air India is the largest carrier on India-United Kingdom routes.
"The strategic divestment transaction of Air India successfully concluded today with transfer of 100 per cent shares of Air India to M/s Talace Pvt Ltd along with management control," DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said in a tweet. A new board, led by the strategic partner, takes charge of Air India, he added.
Air India buyer has to take over interest-bearing debt of Rs 16,500 crore a large portion of which is aircraft related, meaning they are backed by aircraft value
The bulk of Indian carriers flying to Dubai are low-cost carriers, which include IndiGo, Air India Express, and SpiceJet.
National carrier Air India's strategy to cut full-service flights and replace them with low-cost services by Air India Express on its West Asian routes has backfired. The passenger load factor of the flag carrier's low-cost subsidiary for West Asia has fallen a steep 11 percentage points over the last six months as a result of competition from new low-cost entrants and fare wars by incumbents. The PLF on the Dubai-India route fell from 83 to 78 per cent in the same period.
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.
The RSS-affiliated ABVP won the president's post and two other positions in the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections, restricting the NSUI to just one seat. The victory celebrations were muted due to court orders against disruptive festivities.
Heated arguments were also witnessed when BJP leaders and others accompanying Kangana tried to pacify the residents, and police had to intervene to restore peace.
In a bid to resurrect Air India privatisation, the government is planning to give flexibility to potential investors to decide on the humongous debt with the national carrier, a top official has said. The flexibility to potential investors on the quantum of the Rs 60,074 crore debt that they want to absorb will replace the current condition of the buyer taking over more than a third of the debt and transferring the rest to a special purpose vehicle, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said.
Divestment-bound Air India is looking to sell securities of its two provident trusts AIEPF and IAEPF, and has sought applications for transaction advisors to help with the proposed sale of the securities. The Air India Employees Provident Fund (AIEPF) trust and Indian Airlines Employees Provident Fund (IAEPF) trust are governed by the Provident Fund Trust Act, 1925. The two trusts' investments together amounted to Rs 4,500 crore as of August 31, 2021, according to the tender document, seeking RFPs for the appointment of the transaction advisors.
The accident occurred at 7:45 pm while the pilot was attempting to land the B737 Air India Express from Dubai at the tabletop runway of the Karipur International Airport.
Tharoor, who is leading the all-party delegation to the Americas during his Bogota visit, had expressed dismay over the South American country's stance during a press conference on Thursday.
India Test captain Shubman Gill expressed anguish over the large-scale devastation caused by floods in his home state of Punjab due to incessant rainfall.
Air India is likely to rejig its team of directors shortly in view of retirement of some of its top officials.
Apart from the Adani group, the Tata group, the Hinduja group, Indigo and a New York-based fund, Interups, are expected to submit EoIs.
The changes are in view of the requests received from interested bidders and the prevailing situation arising out of COVID-19.
The tragic incident saw 241 of the 242 lives on board the London-bound Boeing 787-8 perish, along with 29 people on the ground as the aircraft plunged into a medical college campus shortly after takeoff.
Out of the total amount, Rs 17,359.77 crore is aircraft loan, while Rs 31,517.04 crore is working capital loan.
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