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.
'The tone of the preliminary report creates a narrative towards pilot error. This is wrong.' 'Selected conversation has been divulged. It's not as if the pilots did not speak anything else in the cockpit.'
Air India did not respond to email queries.
Survey says about 60% were unhappy with the union of the two carriers.
Even a rump Air India could not hope to get away with the shoddy service and scrappy fare for which I paid nearly two lakh, complains Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
Air India pilots and crew often play musical chairs, leading to a substantial revenue loss for the airline in an inefficiently managed set-up
'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.
Personnel posted at places such as Washington, Toronto, Cairo despite not having direct connectivity.
National carrier Air India is running in losses and needs government's attention.
India is the third-largest domestic airline market in the world, up from number five position a decade ago, according to analysis based on OAG data. The data shows India's domestic airline capacity doubling in a decade from 7.9 million in April 2014 to 15.5 million in April 2024. In reaching the third slot, India has replaced Brazil (pushed to fourth place with 9.7 million) and Indonesia (relegated to fifth in the rankings with 9.2 million).
The airliners will be withdrawn from Air India, sent to France to fit airborne radars, then handed over to DRDO to be integrated with the complex software that will allow these aircraft to function as 'eye-in-the-sky' controllers of air force battles.
Air India has been in the red since the merger of then Air India and Indian Airlines in 2007.
In a letter to Air India Chairman and Managing Director Rajiv Bansal, the ICPA said, "In the press conference by Honourable Minister Shri Hardeep Singh Puri dated 16th July 2020, you had stated 'we are in negotiation with the pilots', which is far from reality." "It was not a negotiation, but the 'diktat' of the MoCA (ministry of civil aviation) which was conveyed to us. We would also like to place on record that the so-called negotiation was 'not harmonious' in any aspect," the Indian Commercial Pilots' Association (ICPA) noted.
Inactive crew members are employees who are on any kind of leave be it casual, medical or privilege.
The airline had earlier issued a 'non-acceptance order' to all its station managers and booking offices.
Close on the heels of introducing a direct flight from Dubai to Nagpur on September 24, Air India Express is adding two more Indian destinations to its schedule, Jaipur and Lucknow, said Freddie Vaz, regional Director of Air India.
The SC observed that the government should be more worried about the health of citizens rather than the health of commercial airlines.
The government is selling its entire 100 per cent stake in Air India but wants effective control to stay with Indian nationals.
'If anything happened out of the normal, there would be instantaneous ECAM, EICAS warnings, the master caution or master warnings going off.' 'It would be like a Christmas tree in the cockpit if things start going wrong.'
The national carrier's market share has declined from a near-monopoly to 16.6 per cent as of September 2014.
Former Air India executive director Jitender Bhargava comes out with a book detailing what went wrong with the national carrier. According to him, India does not have a civil aviation policy, and that's just the beginning.
From highways connecting once-remote regions to aviation networks carrying millions, India's infrastructure story is one of transformation.
We celebrate the pioneering achievements of Captain Durba Banerjee and Avani Chaturvedi, leaders in Indian aviation.
Main imports from the neighbouring country during April-January 2024-25 included fruits and nuts (USD 0.08 million), certain oil seeds and medicinal plants (USD 0.26 million), and organic chemicals.
More than 30 flights of various Indian airlines, including Vistara, Air India and IndiGo, received bomb threats on Saturday, according to sources.
Another reason working in Air India's favour now is the government's plan to clean up part of the airline's burgeoning debt from its books - a major deterrent for investors when it attempted divestment the previous time.
In a December 2012 interview, Ratan Tata, then preparing to step down as chairman of Tata Sons, expressed doubts about the Tata group re-entering the aviation sector, calling it a space plagued by "destructive competition". But beneath that frustration lay nearly two decades of failed attempts to conquer the Indian skies. In 1994, Tata, along with Singapore Airlines, had plans to launch a joint venture (JV) airline in India.
Three major domestic carriers -- Air India, Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways -- will together require around $10-12 billion (Rs 47,000-Rs 560,000 crore) over the next two-three years to fund their aircraft acquisition plans, an aviation think tank has said.
Air India is a brand, a brand symbolising the nation, especially amongst the Indian diaspora and travellers overseas.
Cairn Energy and Air India have jointly asked a New York federal court to stay further proceedings in the British firm's US lawsuit targeting the airline for enforcement of a $1.2-billion arbitral award. The move follows the government enacting a law to scrap retrospective taxation in the country, which in effect will result in withdrawal of the Rs 10,247 crore tax demand on Cairn, according to court documents reviewed by PTI. The British company had won an international arbitration award against levy of such taxes and sought to take over Air India assets when the government refused to honour the award and pay it $1.2 billion-plus interest and penalty.
There had been sufficient warnings on Air India's state but the government failed to take action, former executive director Jitender Bhargava said.
'A few answers for the reason of the crash will be known -- whether it was a technical fault, design issue, human error etc.'
Air India, which is operating flights to evacuate Indians stranded in foreign countries, have asked its pilots to undertake coronavirus test before they operate such flights.
'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.'
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.
It is Air India's only profitable subsidiary. In 2016-17, it clocked a profit of over Rs 33.4 crore, earning Rs 620 crore in revenues from its handling operations.
The promoter-brothers, distant cousins to IndiGo's Rahul Bhatia, are eyeing Air India's ground handling subsidiary to augment their aviation services business even as they make a big play in EVs.
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