A five-member team, headed by Sanjay Kumar Singh, is probing the fatal crash of the Air India aircraft last month in Ahmedabad that killed 260 people. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has released its preliminary report and appointed the team.
The government will start working on selling the ground-handling arm of erstwhile national carrier Air India and the Expression of Interest (EoI) is expected in the next fiscal, an official said. "We already have the Cabinet approval for selling the subsidiaries of Air India. "So we will come out with an EoI inviting bids for one of the ground-handling arms in the next fiscal," an official told PTI.
Air India has planned to monetise its unutilised and surplus immovable real estate assets over the next few years.
Air India's ill-fated Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner that crashed soon after take off from Ahmedabad airport on June 12 underwent comprehensive maintenance checks in June 2023 and was due for the next scheduled comprehensive checks in December this year, according to airline officials.
The government has notified the agreement between Air India and special purpose vehicle AIAHL for the transfer of non-core assets, ahead of the national airline's takeover by the Tata Group. The government had in October last year, inked the share purchase agreement with the Tata Group for the sale of national carrier Air India for Rs 18,000 crore. The Tata Group is expected to take full control of the airline, it founded in 1932, on Thursday. The cash component of the deal would come once the handover process is completed. The Tata Group would pay Rs 2,700 crore cash and take over Rs 15,300 crore of the airline's debt.
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.
The government will transfer about Rs 16,000 crore of unpaid fuel bills and other pending dues that Air India owes to suppliers, to a special purpose vehicle before handing over the loss-making airline to the Tata Group, a senior official said. Air India Assets Holding Ltd (AIAHL), which will hold non-core assets of Air India such as land and building, will also be saddled with 75 per cent of the airline's debt that the Tata Group is not taking over. Besides the debt, the excess liability going to AIAHL comprises unpaid fuel bills to oil companies, airport operators and vendors, said Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Secretary to the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management - the department running the privatisation programme of the government.
After its unsuccessful bid to sell Air India in 2018, the government this time has decided to offload its entire stake.
Not needed, it says, with 4,600 staffers to retire over next 3 years, plus transfer of 12,000 to new subsidiaries
According to an international media report, the jet crashed in the afternoon local time while flying a demonstration flight at the prestigious air show.
According to the bid document, as part of the strategic disinvestment Air India would also sell 100 per cent stake in low cost airline Air India Express and 50 per cent shareholding in joint venture AISATS. The management control of the airline would also be transferred to the successful bidder.
HAL aims to raise output from the current ceiling of 24 aircraft a year to 30 by the end of 2027
Changing tracks helps. But, not taking the beaten path isn't always helpful. This is the story of two of India's biggest privatisations - Air India and Bharat Petroleum (BPCL). Nearly two decades after the last privatisation, a landmark divestment concluded this year when the loss-making national carrier Air India was sold to the Tatas.
It involves India spending an estimated Rs 40,000 crores to Rs 50,000 crores and will take 10 to 15 years to develop.
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Friday reported a 9.6 per cent year-on-year rise in net profit for the September quarter, driven by strong performance in its consumer-facing retail and telecom businesses and a recovery in its core oil-to-chemicals segment.
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.
Ashwani Lohani is presently working as Managing Director of Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation in Bhopal.
'Today's situation is unacceptable. It has the potential to affect the IAF's operational capability.'
Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha emphasised that the brand name has both sentimental and economical value.
Amid continuing uncertainty over the fate of the national carrier, an official said there is also need for funds to restart operations of 12 grounded narrow-body planes.
The Adani group plans to bid for setting up duty-free shops at the Macau international airport, as India's largest airport operator spreads its wings overseas. In a stock exchange filing, Adani Enterprises, the flagship firm of the conglomerate run by billionaire Gautam Adani, said it has completed the incorporation of a wholly-owned subsidiary, MTRPL Macau Ltd, in Macau on November 20. The subsidiary has been incorporated for the purpose of getting into the duty-free industry.
The contracts for the procurement of the platforms and weapons systems were signed in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and defence secretary Giridhar Aramane, under whose guidance these deals fructified, an official readout said.
A Mumbai-bound SpiceJet flight from Jaipur carrying 167 passengers and crew overshot the runway at the Mumbai airport Monday night after landing amid heavy rains, blocking it for traffic.
The national carrier's capacity is expected to grow by 9.2 per cent with the addition of six more Boeing 787 Dreamliners to the fleet, they said. As of February this year, the airline has 13 Dreamliners in its fleet out of a total order of 27.
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.
The national carrier has drawn a blueprint to cut the number of recognised unions in the airline from 15 to two -- one for pilots and another for the rest of the employees.
The ministry of defence in September 2021 signed a Rs 21,935-crore contract with Airbus Defense and Space SA, Spain for supply of 56 aircraft.
The IPO market will be bustling next week, with four companies, including Bajaj Housing Finance, set to launch their initial share-sale to raise a total of Rs 8,390 crore. Besides these four main-board IPOs, nine SMEs are preparing to debut with their maiden public issues next week, targeting to collect Rs 254 crore. Together, these 13 firms are looking to raise Rs 8,644 crore through IPO.
Policy lays out a 5-year road map seeking creation of 3.5 mn jobs and promoting 10,000 start-ups.
The pilot ejected safely and a court of inquiry has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the accident, the IAF said in a brief statement.
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.
The status of the current submarine force level is alarming and we need to address the threat perceptions expeditiously. Critical decisions pertaining to national security cannot be delayed any further due to the rapidly changing maritime threat perceptions and growing strategic importance of the Indian Ocean region, asserts Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
As many as 20 central public sector enterprises and their units are at various stages of strategic disinvestment, while six are being considered for closure or are under litigation, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur said on Monday.
The Southeast Asian nation has been focusing on modernising its military in the face of myriad security challenges as well as decades-long territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea.
The Indian troops guarding the nearly 3,500-km Line of Actual Control (LAC) maintained an assertive approach in sync with the broader national security doctrine and procured a variety of military platforms and weapons to enhance their combat capabilities.
The navy is pushing hard for IAC-2 to be a 65,000-tonne, flat deck carrier that is designed and built in India, with technical and tactical consultation from the US navy -- the global masters in aircraft carrier operations.
It is the first project of its kind in which a military aircraft will be manufactured in India by a private company.
It is baffling how the PM chose the LCH as an indigenous product to celebrate on Rashtriya Raksha Samarpan Parv, even while his Cabinet holds up manufacturing clearance for 15 LCHs on the grounds that they are not Indian enough.
'The range of purchases throw a light on India's threat perception as also its perceived role of being a stabilising influence in the region,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
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