Vijay Mallya-promoted Kingfisher Airlines has taken the delivery of four Airbus A-321s in the past three weeks out of the 43 aircraft that it is buying from the European plane manufacturer.
From highways connecting once-remote regions to aviation networks carrying millions, India's infrastructure story is one of transformation.
For the first time in 13 years, since Jet Airways' A330 planes exited the airline's fleet in around 2010, an Indian wide-body aircraft will have a Rolls-Royce-powered engine, with Air India ordering 40 Airbus A350 planes. On Tuesday, Air India announced its mega aircraft order for 470 aircraft, including A350 planes. The A350 aircraft, which will come in two variants, are powered solely by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines and the local team has begun work to assist Air India with its aircraft-induction plans.
SpiceJet's resurgence, once the new funding is in place, has the potential to disrupt the Indian aviation market in 2024 as the airline will bring its grounded aircraft back to service and lease as many planes as possible to be competitively relevant, aviation consultancy firm Capa India said on Thursday. "Although the market for procuring aircraft in 2024 is exceptionally tight, we expect that SpiceJet will bring stored aircraft back into operations, and will wet or dry lease as much capacity as possible, in order to be competitively relevant. "This will have a material impact on the industry structure, and possibly on domestic profitability," Capa India said in its report.
About 170 Airbus aircraft operate in India.
Vistara is likely to offer 148 seats in a three-class configuration in its Airbus A320s, industry sources said.
If all 102 grounded planes could fly, there will theoretically be 400 more Delhi-Mumbai flights every day.
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.
'If the airlines are not given a clear deadline to change the altimeters by the DGCA, why should they do it voluntarily?' 'It means that the aircraft will be grounded for a while and lose money.'
Life of air passengers was different in the 1970s.
The world's largest passenger aircraft, Airbus' A-380, would make its maiden flight to India on May seven and spend three days romancing the Indian skies.
Airbus Industrie is setting its eye on India for selling its brand new, most modern and spacious A-380 aircraft.
With the increase in number of private airlines in the Indian skies, aircraft manufacturer Airbus Industrie expects demand for planes to grow to about 800-1,000, including about 40 of its super jumbo A-380s, in the next two decades.
The government-owned Indian Airlines has acquired a new corporate identity and a new name as well.
Since 1954, the Bhasins have collectively flown every aircraft in India.
An airline's birth is a result of passion and enterprise, often not without its challenges and ordeals. And, Tata-run airlines are no exception
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".
The growth in India's domestic aviation capacity in calendar year 2023 (CY23) was the sixth highest among 20 major domestic markets, compared to the pre-pandemic year of CY19. The domestic capacity in the country surpassed the pre-pandemic level seen in CY19 and was up 5 per cent in CY23. It trails Mexico, Columbia, China, Vietnam, and Spain, which have shown higher growth, according to data shared in a seminar organised by global travel data provider OAG on global aviation trends in 2023.
Indigo has zero competition on 61.2 per cent of its 838 domestic routes.
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.
Initial reports say the pilots had asked for a change in route (it was flying to Singapore) because of adverse weather.
19 per cent of all travel in India (by bus, train or air) was pilgrimage or religious travel (possibly the single largest after business and family-related travel), discovers Ambi Parameswaran.
Almost all Indian airlines like SpiceJet, IndiGo, GoAir, Jet Airways and Air India, have been offering discounted fares on domestic sectors almost on a month-to-month basis.
Let Air India - that anyway flies very limited international routes, often bleeding profusely and makes huge losses on trunk routes - do this national service, says Anjuli Bhargava.
Asian and Middle Eastern airlines -- but no Indian names -- dominated the Top 10 slots at the World Airline Awards.
The Wadia family-promoted budget carrier GoAir on Wednesday said it has placed an order worth $1.2 billion with Toulouse-based Airbus Industrie to buy 20 Airbus 320 aircraft as part of the airline's fleet expansion programme.
Dispute arose as Indian carriers objected to Emirates flying passengers beyond Dubai, and Dubai authorities complained that Indian airlines have been flying more flights than allocated to its carriers.
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.
Aviation regulator DGCA has allowed IndiGo to wet lease wide-body Boeing planes from Turkish Airlines for up to six months and has rejected the domestic carrier's request for leasing the aircraft for up to two years, according to sources. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) turned down the request of the country's largest airline to wet lease the aircraft for a longer period, citing that the move could become diversion of traffic rights in collusion with a strong foreign carrier that will mainly feed the latter's hub abroad with more passengers from India, the sources said. IndiGo, which currently has only narrow-body planes in its fleet, decided to lease wide-body aircraft to operate more flights on international routes to meet rising demand.
Some years ago, Rakesh Gangwal reportedly said his relationship with Rahul Bhatia evolved in an amazing friendship, which he termed 'blind trust'. The question is whether that is under scrutiny now.
In a LinkedIn post on Wednesday, February 15, night, Nipun Aggarwal had said Air India, in addition to the order of 470 planes, had the option to purchase 370 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing.
IndiGo has restored annual increments for more than 4,500 pilots as a financial turnaround helped the airline make a profit in Q3 FY23 after three quarters of loss. An email from the airline's management last week informed pilots of the restoration from April. "The component of annual increment for Indian captains (Rs 10,000 per month) and Indian first officers (Rs 5,000 per month) on the Airbus and ATR fleet which was stopped due to Covid will restart from April 1, 2023," the airline's senior vice president (flight operations) Ashim Mitra said in the staff email.
The 'Maharishi Valmiki International Airport, Ayodhyadham' has become the 68th civil airport terminal in the country to come under the umbrella of the specialised aviation security group of the central force.
Inching closer to launch its operations, new no-frill carrier AirAsia India on Saturday took delivery of its first Airbus A-320 as it landed in Chennai after flying in from Toulouse headquarters of the European aircraft manufacturer.
Analysts remain sceptical on the profitability from freighter business, saying that once normal air transport resumes and there's abundant belly capacity, the traditional economics of air cargo may not be that lucrative.
The aircraft, which has been grounded since March following two fatal crashes which killed 346 on board, is crucial to Indian low-cost airline SpiceJet's fortune, which has up to 205 aircraft on order. With the grounding, the airline's capacity expansion plan is suffering.
Austrian Airlines country manager Bernhard Baeck said the airline has increased its flights from five to seven a week following an over 80 per cent passenger load factor.
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.
Apparently, the losses to the airline due to this scam are now running into crores of rupees.
