The United States has described as "discriminatory and restrictive" the Indian government not allowing American carriers operate chartered flights on Indo-US routes even though Air India was doing so under the Vande Bharat Mission.
The senior pilot was suspended in May last year after being found guilty of sexual harassment by an internal committee of the airline. The committee imposed a 'major penalty' on Captain Sachin Gupta, who has now appealed to the next authority against the punishment.
Air India is seeking government approval to raise a Rs 2,000 crore loan and refinance $819 million aircraft debt, which would help tide over the financial crisis.
More than 80 domestic and international flights of various Indian airlines received bomb threats on Thursday, according to sources.
If the idea of LWP scheme is to only weed out around 600 employees and subsequently save the carrier Rs 10 crore a month, the management could have easily laid off the retired employees, who had an advantage over others by dint of having 'connections' internally and in the corridors of the ministry of civil aviation, say Air India staff.
Air India is set to enhance its in-flight service with a change in ownership from Thursday. This will include more variety in on-board meals, improved in-flight service procedures, and reintroduction of amenities. Non-vegetarian meals are being introduced in the economy class of domestic flights after a gap of nearly four years. Air India is set to enhance its in-flight service with a change in ownership from Thursday. This will include more variety in on-board meals, improved in-flight service procedures, and reintroduction of amenities.
Flight services at Mumbai airport were severely impacted on Monday due to low visibility after heavy rains in the city, leading to runway operations being shut for over an hour and approximately 50 flights being cancelled, sources said.
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.
The DGCA has derostered the Air Traffic Controller (ATC) who was on duty at the time of the incident on Saturday, while IndiGo has initiated a probe into the matter
India's domestic air passenger traffic nearly doubled to 1.25 crore in January compared to 64.08 lakh recorded in the year-ago period, according to official data released on Monday. In January, IndiGo saw its domestic market share decline for the fifth consecutive month at 54.6 per cent. It carried 68.47 lakh passengers last month.
IndiGo will introduce business class seats in select flights on 12 domestic routes starting from November 14 and also launch a customer loyalty programme, as the 18-year-old airline seeks to expand business and strengthen global presence. The announcements, made at an event in the national capital on Monday to mark 18 years of operations, also highlights a pivotal trajectory for the airline.
'Rohit Sharma's victorious team will take a ride on an open-top bus in a parade from the National Centre for Performing Arts in Nariman Point to the iconic Wankhede stadium at 4 pm on Thursday evening, said a report in The Indian Express newspaper.
However, the government is still in the process of identifying which subsidiaries of Air India should be offered separately.
The average number of flights the Air India group, including subsidiaries Alliance Air and Air India Express, operates daily is 674.
According to airline sources, the software, which is of Atlanta-based SITA company, was not functioning approximately from 3 am to 9 am on Saturday. Consequently, boarding passes could not be issued at major airports across the world and various flights were delayed.
This is a setback for the divestment process of Air India as no other Indian airline has the capability to fund the process
Enormous debt isn't the only thing afflicting Air India. Its work culture is an equal culprit in its downfall.
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.
A total of 17 pilots of Air India, IndiGo and Vistara died due to COVID-19 in May when the country saw the peak of the coronavirus pandemic's second wave, sources said on Thursday.
Government officials say a shareholding structure has been mandated to discourage non-serious bidders from accessing Air India's data room
Unprecedented bribery charges, farewells, separation, failed union, monumental mergers and record-breaking IPOs, along with a healthy dose of online happenings in the form of spat and lessons in customer care, corporate India saw it all in 2024.
Rohit Sharma's triumphant team will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi at 11 am at his residence before flying to Mumbai, where a road show and felicitation function is scheduled at the Wankhede stadium.
However, this restriction would not be applicable for international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by the DGCA.
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.
Though the airline has kept a reserve price of Rs 315 crore for these properties, it hopes to make around Rs 500 crore from the sale.
Indian airline companies are likely to announce the suspension of flight operations to and from Tel Aviv, Israel, amid rising tensions between Iran and Israel.
Travel bubbles, also called travel bridges or green corridors, do away with the waiting period for travellers from certain countries. They are reciprocal in nature, meaning flyers from both countries will enjoy similar benefits.
The Tata group may have to deploy upwards of $1 billion to improve the airline's passenger reservation system, upgrade and refurbish Air India's fleet, primarily the wide-body aircraft which are the mainstay for the airline's international operations, people in the know said. While the group has not yet decided on how it intends to integrate Air India with its existing airlines AirAsia India and Vistara, sources said the first task will be to refinance Air India's existing loans, upgrade its aircraft gradually, and rewrite multiple business contracts with vendors and suppliers. "They will have to do 100 things to stabilise the airline and will have to put in a lot of money," DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said, confirming that many aircraft are grounded.
While Bhasin will be getting provident fund money and gratuity, he would not be getting leave encashment for 420 days, medical reimbursement for himself and wife, free passes for himself and wife, and holiday home facilities.
According to Air India, the number of flights per week would be increased on routes such as Delhi-Bengaluru-Delhi, Delhi-Amritsar-Delhi, Chennai-Ahmedabad-Chennai and Chennai-Kolkata-Chennai.
Long-term macro trends indicate growth in demand for air travel. Trends from the ticketing website MakeMyTrip indicate a likely annual growth of between 11-17 per cent in Indian air travel demand over FY24-30. Through that period, InterGlobe Aviation or IndiGo may continue to make gains in market share in both domestic and international travel, aided by large fleet additions. IndiGo is the largest global customer of Airbus by far with 950 aircraft orders outstanding.
Protocols for the Bomb Threat Assessment Committee (BTAC), convened in the event of a bomb threat call to an aircraft or airport, have been tweaked to better tackle the spate of the ongoing 'random' Internet-based threats being made to various Indian airlines, official sources said Tuesday.
IndiGo has delivered impressive operating performance in the past six quarters as it navigated cost and capacity challenges. It has managed to mitigate the impact of faulty engine-related groundings. The airline has also managed costs related to grounding, expensive secondary leasing, increasing airport charges, and pilot compensation inflation and delivered stronger yields and spreads.
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.
'Just look at China: They have five or six major airlines and some smaller ones.'
Air India owns 32 aircraft, and has 37 aircraft on finance lease; Air India Express owns 17 aircraft on finance lease. The aircraft-related debt of Air India is Rs 16,000 crore; it's Rs 1,100 crore for Air India Express.
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.
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).
People gathered at the airport long before her arrival and they celebrated Manu Bhaker's feat with song and dance, beating of drums and holding banners.
