In a dramatic turn of events in May 2019, an Emirates aircraft en-route to Dubai was asked to stop while it was taxiing for a take off in Mumbai. The pilot was given no reason and ordered to immediately return to the parking bay. As the aircraft returned to the terminal, two passengers from the first class - Naresh Goyal and his wife Anita - were offloaded by the immigration authorities, who said the duo cannot leave the country. Goyal, founder of Jet Airways, was stunned. The man, who ruled the aviation sector for two and a half decades with an iron hand, did not expect to be offloaded in this fashion.
More than 1,600 employees of Air India, the former state-run carrier now owned by the Tata group, have opted for voluntary retirement under a scheme announced on June 1. These employees comprise 22 per cent of permanent staff (around 7,000). The airline has a total employee strength of around 10,800, including those on contract.
'Building a whole product with the railways was challenging; we had to figure out how to load and unload a train when it stops for only about five minutes at a station.' 'We also helped them understand the revenues this would generate for them.'
During an interaction at a conclave in New Delhi, he also said that the Indian Navy is seized of the docking of various PLA Navy ships at ports in Pakistan, and it is 'keeping a watch on it'.
In a bid to incentivise its staff and improve their performance, Air India may soon offer them employee stock options (ESOPs). The erstwhile national carrier, which was acquired by the salt-to-steel conglomerate Tata Group last year, will be the second company in the Group to have an ESOP policy. Tata Motors is the other Group company with an ESOP policy, which was implemented in 2018.
When the Tatas re-boarded Air India on January 27 last year, the price of aviation turbine fuel was at over Rs 80,000 per kilolitre. Rupee was trading at around Rs 74 to a US dollar. The Omicron variant of Covid-19 was in prevalence - barely a week earlier, India had reported over 340,000 cases on a single day. Seven-day home quarantine of international travellers was the norm.
"The message is clear. We're not going to stand by and let China or anyone else take the reins in terms of being the most powerful, dominant force, whether it's in that region or over here," White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told Fox News.
Dubious and personal expenses of Rs 1,000 crore were made from bank-loan funds for Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal and his family members even as the airline "diverted" money to some tax havens, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) alleged on Saturday, after arresting the businessman in a money-laundering case. Goyal (74) was taken into custody late on Friday night after the central probe agency took him to its Mumbai office from Delhi. A special court set up to deal with cases lodged under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Saturday sent him to the ED's custody for 10 days, till September 11.
Curtailment of flights between India and China will help Air India and other airlines to boost their seat occupancy and market share.
IndiGo on Monday said that around 30 aircraft are grounded due to "supply chain disruptions" and the country's largest airline is evaluating wet leasing of planes and other options to boost operations. At the end of September, the carrier -- also the world's seventh largest in terms of daily departures -- had 279 aircraft in its fleet. It operates more than 1,600 daily flights and currently flies to 100 destinations, including 26 international ones.
New airline Akasa Air on Friday said it will launch commercial flight operations on August 7 by operating its first service on Mumbai-Ahmedabad route using Boeing 737 Max aircraft. In a statement, the carrier said it has opened ticket sales on 28 weekly flights it will be operating on Mumbai-Ahmedabad route from August 7, as well as on 28 weekly flights it will operating on Bengaluru-Kochi route from August 13. The carrier will launch commercial operations with two 737 Max aircraft. Boeing has delivered one Max plane and the second one's delivery is scheduled to take place later this month.
The Rafale maritime fighter aircraft on Monday demonstrated its operational capability at a naval facility in Goa as the Navy plans to acquire a fleet of combat jets for its indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC) Vikrant, people familiar with the development said.
The government on Monday signed the share purchase agreement with Tata Sons for the sale of national carrier Air India for Rs 18,000 crore. Earlier this month, the government had accepted an offer by Talace Pvt Ltd, a unit of the holding company of the salt-to-software conglomerate, to pay Rs 2,700 crore cash and take over Rs 15,300 crore of the airline's debt. Following that, on October 11 a Letter of Intenet (LoI) was issued to the Tata Group confirming the government's willingness to sell its 100 per cent stake in the airline.
After the Russian aviation sector was hit by crippling Western sanctions for war against Ukraine, China refused to supply Russia with aircraft parts.
There is little appetite among combat aircraft engine makers to share the IP that results from a co-creation project. But Rolls-Royce is willing to walk the Aatmanirbhar talk.
An Indian man travelling from New York to Delhi in an American Airlines flight has been apprehended at the Delhi airport for allegedly urinating on his co-passenger, official sources said Monday.
China will use airpower to support Pakistan from the start of a war. China will use the opportunity to at least take Ladakh. Its growing navy will prevent India from blockading or attacking the Makran Coast. And thanks to Chinese weapons, Pakistan keeps expanding its forces, observes Ravi Rikhye.
As India observes state mourning on Sunday over Queen Elizabeth II's death, many people questioned the decision after the government's attempts to remove 'symbols of slavery' by rechristening Rajpath and unveiling a new naval ensign drawing inspiration from Chhatrapati Shivaji.
Coming to the aid of all Air India pilots, permanent as well as on contract, whose services were terminated last year, the Delhi high court on Tuesday quashed the national carrier's decision and directed their reinstatement. The direction was issued by Justice Jyoti Singh who also ordered that back wages would have to be paid to the reinstated pilots. The court said that the back wages, including allowances, have to be paid at par with what in-service pilots were receiving and in accordance with the government rules.
Indian civil aviation norms don't apply to foreign aviation companies, experts said.
The world needs to wake up to this new dimension of war at sea and be prepared to face the 'unknown enemy' who have the advantage of attacking at their choice of location and time, cautions Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
The Union home ministry on Thursday announced that with this, the restrictions placed on visa and international travel since March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic stand further eased given the present overall pandemic situation.
The plane was scheduled to be delivered by aircraft manufacturer Boeing to Air India in July but its delivery was delayed twice --once in July for a few weeks due to COVID-19 pandemic and then in August for a few weeks due to technical reasons -- the officials noted.
No-frills carrier Go First filing for insolvency proceedings and cancelling flights is bad for the airline industry as the move will reduce capacity and could push airfares in certain routes, travel agents' grouping TAAI said on Wednesday.
A few years ago, when top officials of Indian state-run refiners went to Dubai to negotiate a crude oil supply contract, a senior official from state-owned Saudi Aramco told them, "We can negotiate on anything, but I am the last man standing for you. "Nobody can offer the range of crudes we do with certainty," an official who was part of the negotiating team recalls. Perhaps that explains why Saudi Arabia is less concerned about losing its place as India's premier oil supplier to an upstart like Russia, which emerged from nowhere to become India's biggest crude oil supplier in September and October.
Air India sale will give a boost to India's privatisation drive, the Economic Survey said on Monday, as it suggested redefining the public sector role in business enterprises to encourage private participation in all sectors. The government earlier this month handed over ownership rights in national carrier Air India to Tata Group for Rs 18,000 crore. The amount includes the takeover of the debt burden of Rs 15,300 crore and another Rs 2,700 crore in cash.
London hopes to convince New Delhi's naval planners to power India's second indigenous aircraft carrier with the Queen Elizabeth's integrated all-electric propulsion system.
The incident which took place on Friday came close on the heels of two mid-air urinating incidents on the international flights of Tata Group-run private carrier Air India late last year.
Air India on Friday opposed before the Delhi high court the reinstatement and payment of back wages to over 40 pilots, saying that unless resignation is specifically made prospective, it is effective immediately and a pilot cannot withdraw it subsequently. "Unless otherwise specified, resignation is effective immediately. "There is no competence (with pilots) to withdraw on the ground that I am still serving notice period," Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing Air India, told a bench headed by Justice Rajiv Shakdher.
The EoI and the share purchase agreement would be issued in January itself for the bidders. While Air India's net loss in 2018-19 was around Rs 8,556 crore, its current total debt is around Rs 80,000 crore.
Ernst & Young LLP India has been appointed as transaction adviser for the strategic divestment process.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Thursday reserved its order on crisis-hit airline Go First's plea seeking voluntary insolvency resolution proceedings and interim moratorium on financial obligations while aircraft lessors vehemently opposed the petition. Amid the airline facing severe financial crunch and cancelling flights, a two-member NCLT bench comprising Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar and Member L N Gupta heard the arguments for and against the petition for nearly four hours. As aircraft lessors opposed the plea, the counsels for Go First said the petition was not a malicious one to avoid payment of dues to its creditors but to save the company.
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.
The passengers were stopped by the crew members for consuming alcohol and they apologised in writing for the incident.
Domestic air passenger volume spiked 70.46 per cent in October to 89.85 lakh over the same month of 2020, DGCA data showed on Thursday. The Indian carriers had flown 52.71 lakh passengers in October last year. It may be recalled that domestic traffic along with international flight services remained shut for two months until May 25, 2020, when scheduled air services were resumed in a graded manner.
It took India and the Indian Army to show to the world that enough is enough and to challenge the neighbourhood bully, he said.
Disability rights came under the spotlight again as the country's largest airline IndiGo refused to let a teenager with special needs board its aircraft. While the twitterati as well as fellow passengers have called for strict action, IndiGo has stood by its action saying the airport manager took the decision to ensure safety of other passengers. "Throughout the check-in and boarding process, our intent of course was to carry the family. "However, at the boarding area, the teenager was visibly in panic.
With the expected launch of The People's Liberation Army (Navy)'s second aircraft carrier on April 23, China will match India in carrier numbers.
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.
