The aviation regulator slapped fines amounting to Rs 2.75 crore on Indian airlines in 2023, marking a 39 per cent rise in financial penalties from Rs 1.97 crore in 2022. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said it imposed fines on domestic carriers such as Air India, IndiGo, AirAsia India and SpiceJet for issues related to non-compliance in 2023. The regulator also carried out a record number of 5,745 surveillance activities in the year to ensure compliance by airlines, aerodrome operators, and aviation personnel among others.
Sources in the know confirmed Vistara, the joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, had booked six slots at the airport in New Delhi, adding it was ready to fly once it secured the government's nod.
The carrier planned to bring in a plane a month from March to build a fleet of at least 10 jets by the end of the year.
The first funeral for a victim of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 was held on Thursday, as officials vowed an 'all out effort' to recover the other passengers' bodies from the sea.
Doomed AirAsia jet's fuselage was found on Wednesday raising hopes of retrieving the remaining bodies of the 162 people killed in the tragedy, as investigators downloaded the contents of black box recorders and were likely to crack the crash's mystery soon.
Rescuers hunting for the crashed AirAsia plane on Friday detected 'pings' believed to be from its crucial black box, a top Indonesian official said, raising hopes of unravelling the mystery of the deadly crash.
Tony Fernandes said the aviation sector here was a "double marathon" and not a "sprint".
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.
Divers on Monday retrieved the crucial flight data recorder of the AirAsia plane from the Java Sea in a potential breakthrough to solve the mystery of the crash, as an Indonesian official said the jet 'exploded' on impact with the water due to rapid change in pressure.
The tail section of the AirAsia flight that went down more than a week ago was found on Wednesday in the Java Sea, raising hopes that the plane's black boxes might soon be recovered to determine the cause of the mysterious crash.
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.
Initial reports say the pilots had asked for a change in route (it was flying to Singapore) because of adverse weather.
Rescuers found 30 bodies with 5 of them still strapped to their seats as multi-national teams equipped with sophisticated equipment narrowed the search to a 5 sq km area of the choppy Java Sea where some debris of the ill-fated AirAsia jet have emerged.
Divers on Tuesday retrieved the cockpit voice recorder and may have located the fuselage of the crashed AirAsia jet in the Java Sea as experts will now use data from the two crucial black box devices to determine the sequence of events that brought the flight down. The cockpit voice recorder, that possesses the last two hours of conversation between the pilots and with air traffic controllers, was found close to where the flight data recorder was recovered from the bottom of the choppy waters on Monday.
Divers on Thursday searched the sunken fuselage of the crashed AirAsia jet in the JavaSea to retrieve the missing bodies of the 162 people killed in the disaster, a day after the main wreck was located in the choppy waters after over two weeks of multi-national hunt.
Rescuers on Sunday recovered another body and a fifth large object belonging to the doomed AirAsia jet in the JavaSea as they continued to scour the choppy waters for the eighth day.
Navy divers on Monday resumed efforts to find more wreckage of the ill-fated AirAsia jet with no signal detected yet from the black box recorders, as rescue teams expanded search eastward to locate large objects of the plane believed to be on the ocean floor.
This was good enough for Fernandes to hire Chandilya to lead his India business.
After three days of intense search, debris of the missing AirAsia aircraft carrying 162 people was found on Tuesday in the Java Sea off Indonesia but only three bodies have been retrieved so far as the mystery remained over the cause of the crash.
The national carrier has sought dry-leasing these planes for six years instead of buying them, as part of its Turnaround and Financial Restructuring Plans, airline sources said.
An AirAsia flight from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people aboard reportedly went missing on Sunday morning after losing contact with air traffic controllers.
Searchers using sonar equipment on Wednesday located the wreckage of the ill-fated AirAsia plane carrying 162 people at the bottom of the Java Sea off Indonesia, even as bad weather hampered the recovery of many bloated bodies seen floating around the crash site.
Investigators said the system that helps control the movement of the aircraft's rudder had a cracked solder joint that malfunctioned four times during the flight.
It offers a real opportunity for the flag carrier to compete on the world stage, backed by a leading conglomerate with deep pockets like the Tatas, observes Indrajit Gupta.
The acquisition will give the Tatas a firm footing on international routes and generate economies of scale.
The letter shared with the media on Saturday comes amid Maharashtra losing several big-ticket projects to neighbouring Gujarat.
Don't look for a single cause -- a combination of factors is needed to bring down any plane, says Shakti Lumba
French aerospace major Thales Group is eyeing major expansion in India. The group has started planning to set up a maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) organisation in India to support Indian airlines - many of which are its customers for avionics support. "We are looking to set up an MRO, so that they don't have to travel to West Asia or Singapore. "Final decision is yet to be taken, but this is a clear intent showing the growth potential in India that we are looking to set up a sub-centre here," said Yannick Assouad, executive vice-president, avionics at Thales, who was on her maiden visit to the group's India office at Bengaluru since taking charge.
Nine months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared shortly after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur, Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501, an Airbus A320 airliner carrying 162 people, disappeared from radar screens early Sunday, about 40 minutes after leaving the Indonesian city of Surabaya en route to Singapore. Till Monday, there were no signs of the missing plane. The story of AirAsia flight QZ8501 sounds remarkably similar to that of Malaysia Airlines MH370, which remains missing nearly 10 months after it disappeared from radar screens on a flight between Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Beijing.
The airline is not convinced that it will have a sizeable passenger traffic to make wide body operations profitable
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.
This is the largest single dose of equity infusion into the joint venture since its launch in January 2015.
Ajit Singh says will seek cabinet nod to scrap 5-year, 20 aircraft rule.
To attract bidders, the government had decided to hive of around Rs 35,000 crore of the company's debt into a separate subsidiary, leaving around Rs 23,286 crore to be absorbed by the new bidder.
Both Vistara and AirAsia India, along with their partners, are quietly putting together an aggressive plan to become a formidable force in the skies. At the core of this new push is their plan to go international this financial year.
7,000 unemployed pilots in India but airlines continue to bet on expats
Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed new airline Akasa is in talks with US aerospace company Boeing for buying up to 100 737 Max aircraft. Former Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube and his family members are promoters while ex-IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh is a board member of the airline. The airline is in negotiation with Boeing and has reached out to the government to recertify the aircraft which has been grounded since 2018 after two crashes killing 349 persons, according to sources in the know.
Approval was held up due to CBI investigation into international flying permit of Tata group-owned AirAsia India.
Jet Airways, IndiGo and GoAir achieved operating profits of Rs 122.6 crore (Rs 1.22 billion), Rs 795.8 crore (Rs 7.95 billion) and Rs 85.1 crore (Rs 851 million) respectively during the same period, Minister of State for Civil Aviation K C Venugopal said in reply to a question.
National carrier Air India became part of the 27-member global airlines grouping Star Alliance, as budget airline AirAsia India launched operations and Tata-SIA joint venture carrier Vistara received the flying permit and announced its intentions to start operations from January 9.
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