The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has released a draft procedure that calls for testing pilots, other aviation personnel and crew members for psychoactive substances before they take to the skies. The Indian civil aviation regulator has sought comments from stakeholders over the next 30 days before issuing a regulation to this effect. Asking airlines and airports to do random checks on crew and air traffic controllers, DGCA proposed that violators be suspended for a minimum of three years or their licence be permanently cancelled as maximum punishment.
The AirAsia aircraft that went missing after taking off from Indonesia with 162 people on board may be at the bottom of the sea, a top Indonesian official said on Monday, as the multinational search for the Airbus continued amid fading hopes of finding any survivors.
The overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi stood at 398 at 11 am, worsening from 357 at 4 pm on Friday. It was 354 on Thursday, 271 on Wednesday, 302 on Tuesday and 312 on Monday (Diwali).
The police have detained the man, identified as Kapil Gujjar, a resident of Dallupura village near Delhi-Noida border. His cousin's wedding is approaching and he had to run around a lot make arrangements, police sources said.
The AirAsia flight that went down into the Java Sea, killing all 162 people onboard, ascended too fast before coming to a halt, Indonesia's transport minister has said.
In the first of the series on Budget 2021, Dominic Xavier hopes the FinMIn will give India's struggling airlines a break.
'When you are travelling in Mumbai when the air quality is bad, you feel suffocated.' 'You may feel uncomfortable breathing Delhi air, but the level of discomfort is higher in Mumbai.'
India's domestic passenger traffic slipped to a 10-year low at an estimated 53.4 million in the just-concluded financial year, a report said. However, in the previous fiscal there were no passenger flight operations for almost two months due to the pandemic-induced lockdown. During the financial year 2010-11, all domestic air operators together had flown a total of 53.8 million passengers on local routes, according to ratings agency ICRA. The domestic passenger traffic in March 2021 has been estimated at around 77-78 lakh, a marginal decline of about 1 per cent over February during which airlines had flown around 78.30 lakh passengers, it 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.
A suspected Chinese spy balloon, said to be the size of three buses, was spotted over the United States' airspace, the Pentagon has said, a development that has further strained the already tense bilateral ties as Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday abruptly postponed his key visit to Beijing.
An Army helicopter crashed in a forested area in Jammu and Kashmir Kishtwar district on Thursday, officials said.
Because of lack of pilots, airlines have been forced to cancel their flights and rework their schedules, constraining cash flows and delaying vendor payments.
Delhi shivered as the maximum temperature plummeted to less than 15 C on Monday even as dense fog created chaos with air, rail and road traffic.
The move is expected to give a major relief to Air India, which suffered a huge financial loss of around Rs 491 crore.
A video on Twitter showed one of the plane's engines on fire and sparks flying at the time of taxiing at the airport.
The multinational search for the missing AirAsia flight entered the third day on Tuesday after a futile day-long scanning of the JavaSea where the Airbus 320-200 is believed to have gone down with 162 passengers and crew.
A woman passenger claimed that she had explosives and threatened to blow up the aircraft mid-air but it turned out to be a hoax. No bombs were found following a thorough search of the plane after it made an emergency landing.
Scores of people scrambled for milk and food packets in flood-ravaged Vijayawada on Monday, and also complained about alleged government apathy towards their hardships in the past three days.
As the Tata group inches closer to taking over Air India in January 2022, the $242-billion conglomerate will also inherit a stake in Kerala's Cochin airport. The Tatas would become the only airline to have an operational stake in a major Indian airport. The airport is a strategic hub connecting India to Middle East nations - home to the largest share of Indian migrant workers. In addition to Air India and Air India Express, private carrier Indigo also uses Cochin to ferry the lucrative 'Malayali Gulf traffic' to multiple locations like Jeddah, Riyadh, Sharjah, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Kuwait and Bahrain, among others. According to regulatory filings, Air India has a three per cent stake in Cochin International Airport.
Police personnel checked vehicles and conducted flag marches at various places in Punjab on Wednesday while central forces maintained a tight vigil in Tripura.
However, while the capacity void in the domestic market has been filled, a vacuum still remains in international connectivity, especially on the India-Europe and onwards route, which was well connected by Jet Airways via the Boeing 777, Airbus A330 aircraft and its hubs in Paris and Amsterdam.
The acquisition will give the Tatas a firm footing on international routes and generate economies of scale.
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.
The Air Traffic Controller inadvertently gave instructions to one aircraft to continue taxiing through a particular taxiway mixing its location with that of another plane that led to a near collision at Delhi airport on Tuesday, according to the Airports Authority of India.
Ten to 20 days of heatwave are expected against the normal of four to eight days in the entire April-June period.
A SpiceJet spokesperson said that after take-off from Jeddah, ATC informed the pilots that tyre pieces were found on the runway.
The government has requested the Civil Aviation Ministry to reduce the number of flights from these states in view of high prevalence of coronavirus cases there, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J C Madhuswamy said in a statement.
The Nepal government signed a $215.96 million soft loan agreement with China in March 2016 for the construction of the airport in this tourist hub.
As part of the celebrations, Govindas or Dahi Handi participants form multi-tiered human pyramids to break 'Dahi Handis' (claypots filled with curd) suspended in mid-air.
The hike in Indian passengers travelling to or through Dubai International airport has been caused by the fact that seven Indian and Dubai airlines operated to and from 20 Indian cities, which have a total of 185 flights every week, Dubai Airports' media relations manager Zaigham Ali said in New Delhi.
Police said there were intelligence inputs that attempts would be made to trigger violence during the match, because of which it was cancelled.
A Jet Airways flight from Mumbai to London, with more than 300 people, triggered a major scare when it lost contact with the Air Traffic Control after getting intercepted by German fighter jets. The flight then had to be escorted by German Air Force fighter planes before it landed.
Following the incident, which took place at Chennai airport last week, the Airports Authority of India raised the issue with IndiGo, asking it not to pass the blame for flight delays "falsely" to the ATC, sources said.
The banned Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the blast was a suicide attack targeting a convoy of Chinese engineers and investors leaving the Jinnah International Airport.
Srinagar recorded the maximum temperature of 35.6 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, the highest temperature in the month of July in 25 years since 1999 when the mercury had settled at 37 degrees Celsius, the officials said.
In its first move to significantly expand the fleet after the Tatas took over, Air India has leased 25 Airbus narrow-body aircraft and five Boeing wide-body planes. These will enter service starting December, the company said on Monday. A wide-body plane has a bigger fuel tank, allowing it to travel longer distances such as India-US routes.
Announcing this at a conference on Communication, Navigation and Surveillance systems, AAI Member (Operations) G K Chaukiyal said that the low-cost airports would be built over 10 years in an effort to reduce the cost of operation.
On Thursday, Virgin Atlantic, for instance, cancelled its morning flight between London and Delhi. And Air India rescheduled its London-Ahmedabad flight by several hours. With the Heathrow restrictions to remain in place till September 11, air traffic between India and London is likely to see slower growth over the next two months.
Singapore Airlines' deal with Tata Sons (Tata) will inject a further SGD 360 million ($267 million) into Air India. It will give SIA a 25.1 per cent stake in the enlarged Air India group following its takeover by Tata and merger with Vistara Airlines. The November 2022 deal between Singapore Airlines and Tata Sons to further inject $267 million into Air India is one of the key strategic initiatives for future growth mentioned in the quarterly financial report. This agreement is still subject to regulatory approval. SIA in the statement said, "The merged entity will be four to five times larger in scale compared to Vistara, with a strong presence in all key airline segments in India.
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