Pilot groups have accused the AAIB of portraying the pilots as responsible for the incident, with vague and selective presentation of cockpit conversations.
"Heartbroken by the loss of Shri @RNTata2000 Ji, whose visionary leadership not only transformed India's industry but also played a pivotal role in shaping our aviation sector," Naidu said in a post on X.
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.
Tata Group-owned Air India has informed the Centre that aircraft lessors wish to set up their special purpose vehicles (SPVs) outside India since they aren't enthused about the Indian 'legal structure' and are loath to take risks. Indian airlines have a combined fleet of about 700 planes; over 85 per cent are on lease. A majority of lessors are based in Ireland due to its attractive tax policy, light-touch regulations, and swift legal system.
Kamra allegedly heckled Goswami, the editor of Republic TV, on IndiGo's Mumbai-Lucknow (6E5317) flight on Tuesday.
Ashwani Lohani is presently working as Managing Director of Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation in Bhopal.
Re-rating of Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Container Corporation, Shipping Corporation, SAIL, and Hindustan Copper, for which the government has already shown intent to divest its stake, possible now, say analysts.
Star Alliance is generally reluctant to partner with Gulf airlines, partnering with Air India is the only option for the alliance to enter the Indian market, said a senior Air India executive, who also asked not to be named.
According to the officials, generally, a passenger is not served more than 100 ml of liquor during a flight.
Ruia, a chartered accountant whose business ranged from sugar to textiles and heavy engineering to tyres, refused to comment on queries about his interest in Air India.
The mega-merger of state-run carriers Air India and Indian received the final government nod on Thursday, with the Union Cabinet giving a go ahead to the proposal of the Group of Ministers in this regard.
The government is planning to liberalise the terms and conditions for the sale of the national carrier. The Centre is still pursuing the option of selling the airline's subsidiaries before the airline itself, in order to deal with an outstanding debt of around Rs 27,000 crore.
'A few answers for the reason of the crash will be known -- whether it was a technical fault, design issue, human error etc.'
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.
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.
Tata Sons is all set to acquire a residual stake of 16.33 per cent in AirAsia India from its joint venture (JV) partner AirAsia Berhad for $19 million (or Rs 142 crore) by early next year. The valuation is in accordance with the previous transaction under which AirAsia Berhad had sold its 32.6 per cent stake, said a banking source. Tata Group had increased its stake in AirAsia India at a valuation of $115 million.
Air India would add about 400 daily flights and over 40 new destinations in India to the 27-member Alliance network of over 18,500 daily flights to 1,316 airports in 195 countries.
The recent spate of technical glitches in aircraft has prompted the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to issue an order on July 18, making aircraft maintenance engineers (AMEs) with category B1/B2 licences the final authorities in certifying planes. This has put the spotlight on the availability of such personnel. According to the order, airlines were resorting to frequent one-off authorisation by the Category A certifying staff at transit stations, which is not in line with existing regulatory provisions.
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 government is also planning to replace the current ageing Air India One or Boeing 747 with Boeing 777s. Arup Roychoudhury and Archis Mohan report.
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
Lightning claims more lives in India annually than any other extreme weather event. Between April and July this year alone, 1,621 people died due to lightning strikes.
The CVC had asked the CBI to probe the 'irregularities in the tendering process and award of contract and undue benefit caused to the SAP/IBM'.
The national carrier's market share has declined from a near-monopoly to 16.6 per cent as of September 2014.
Air India had placed an order for 68 aircraft, including Boeing 737s, 777s and 787s, all valued at $11 billion in Dec 2005.
Apart from the main company, five of Air India's subsidiaries and a joint venture firm have been included in the strategic sale plan.
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.
Starting November 12, Vistara aircraft will be operated under the Air India banner, to be identified by a special four-digit flight code beginning with "2".
Air India must tighten costs to comes out of the red or it wil perish in no time, says experts.
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
Out of the total amount, Rs 17,359.77 crore is aircraft loan, while Rs 31,517.04 crore is working capital loan.
'Take care Maa, flight take off karne wala hai, wapas aakar baat karti hoon.'
Tata group-owned AirAsia India's inability to get approval for international flights is hurting UDAN, the Indian government's regional air connectivity project that also aims to link cities in Northeast India and Odisha to places abroad. Sources said the civil aviation ministry is waiting for the low-cost airline to come under the full ownership of Tata Sons and become part of Air India, the former state-owned carrier now owned by the private conglomerate, before allowing it to operate international flights. Tata owns 84 per cent stake in AirAsia India and it is understood that the group will complete the process of buying rest of the stake by July's end.
In the case of Air India, even competition could not compete with the government.
The biggest challenge is not the airline's debt, but downsizing its 16,800 employees, says Surajeet Dasgupta.
Facing disruptions due to non-availability of crew, Vistara on Sunday announced reducing 10 per cent of its capacity or 25-30 flights daily and most of the cancellations are in the domestic network as the Tata Group airline strives to stabilise operations. The full-service carrier is to operate over 300 flights daily in the ongoing summer schedule and witnessed significant disruptions earlier this week as many pilots reported sick, resulting in cancellations of flights. "We are carefully scaling back our operations by around 25-30 flights per day, i.e. roughly 10 per cent of the capacity we were operating.
Budget airline AIX Connect has removed its manager from duty at Bengaluru airport following the incident of a flight taking off without Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot last week, a source said on Monday.
A mutually beneficial relationship between the airline and the govt is the reason for its continued funding.
If the government is asking a maximum price for Air India but asks to keep old personnel, it will not match.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances