Deploying additional Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel, providing real-time updates through social media, adding more immigration counters and ensuring 100 per cent manning of immigration counters - these are some of the steps that the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) is now taking in coordination with other stakeholders to avoid congestion at major airports during the upcoming festival season. During the last year's festival and winter season, major airports in the country suffered from congestion due to lack of sufficient airport infrastructure, inadequate X-ray screening machines, bunching of flights at peak hours, as well as inadequate CISF and immigration personnel, the MoCA stated on Thursday. Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, after last year's congestion issue, had asked major airports - including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai - to identify bottlenecks and augment capacity to meet the growing passenger demand.
As many as 19 flights have received bomb threats in three days and a Riyadh-bound IndiGo flight was diverted to Muscat due to the threat, according to officials.
Accompanied by BJP national general secretary and party in-charge of poll-bound Tamil Nadu, C T Ravi, and Murugan, with his security detail in tow, the home minister warmly waved at the overjoyed supporters who had thronged the airport since the morning.
Indian carriers, which are still reeling under high jet fuel prices, are now seeing red over airports increasing the space rental fees by 50 to 450 per cent. Airport charges account for 12-15 per cent of an airline's costs.
The Supreme Court of India expressed concern over the appointment of DMK leader V Senthil Balaji as a minister in the Tamil Nadu government despite pending money laundering cases against him. The court questioned the state government's decision, stating it is "terribly wrong" to appoint a person as a minister while facing legal proceedings. The matter has been adjourned to January 15, 2025.
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According to the CPI-M, Aleida, who arrived in Chennai from Thiruvananthapuram, is likely to attend a party meeting on Tuesday and will participate in a public reception on Wednesday.
Running for the US House of Representatives from the 10th Congressional District of Virginia, a Democratic stronghold, Subramanyam defeated Mike Clancy of the Republican Party. He is currently a Virginia State Senator.
CSK shared a photo of Mahendra Singh Dhoni arriving at the hotel upon his arrival. 'Thala Dharisanam, finally!'
Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel on Tuesday lashed out at the Planning Commission, holding it responsible for the delay in the modernisation of Kolkata and Chennai airports.
Most international flights scheduled to arrive at the city airport have been diverted to the Thiruvananthapuram airport.
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The Tata Group and Singapore's Changi Airports International have agreed to jointly bid for the modernisation works of airports at Chennai and Kolkata as also vie for similar projects in non-metro airports.
The minister's remarks come against the backdrop of Surya, the ruling BJP's Bengaluru South MP, facing flak from Congress over the incident, which happened on December 10 last year at Chennai airport.
Airports across the country witnessed chaotic scenes on Friday after dozens of flights were either delayed or cancelled after a widespread global computer outage that also hit operations like cash withdrawal at some banks, and impacted functioning of some brokerages. Globally, the Microsoft cloud outage led to US airlines cancelling flights, but the tech giant later reportedly said its cloud services outage in the Central US region has been resolved.
The cyclonic depression may have crossed the Tamil Nadu coast on Thursday evening, but the state continues to be battered by heavy rains.
Wing Commander Raveendran and flight steward Sargeant Iyer, though shaken and injured, managed to open the rear door of the aircraft and shouted for Prime Minister Morarji Desai and the passengers in the forward cabin to exit in haste since they suspected that fire would engulf the aircraft.
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An unclaimed suitcase lying near the entrance of the international terminal at the Chennai airport created panic among passengers in the wee hours of Friday, before it was moved to a cooling pit by the Bomb Disposal Squad.According to airport sources, the suitcase was noticed near a restaurant around 2 am.The Bomb Disposal Squad personnel of the Bureau of Civil Aviation immediately rushed to spot. On opening the suitcase, they found some clothes and an old watch, sources said
Cries of help were forwarded through the night, as Chennaiites, who waded through a similar nightmare in 2015, reconnected online again and formed citizen rescue groups to deal with emergencies.
Mumbai-based low-cost carrier GoAir has decided to stop its flights to Chennai from the coming week. This is the fourth destination to which the carrier has opted out after Kochi, Coimbatore and Pune.
Relatively a lesser degree of damage, including those to houses marked the landfall of cyclonic storm Mandous in Tamil Nadu and at least four people were killed in rain-related incidents, authorities said in Chennai on Saturday.
A new greenfield airport will come up at Sriperumbudur and Tiruvallur taluks near Chennai, while there are expansion plans for the existing airport at Meenambakkam, according to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.
Was this Chennai? Or Singapore? There's an area in Singapore that looked like a suburb of Chennai.
Nuts, whiskey, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, cream... Can anything be more wicked?
Air India will be commencing its scheduled operations -- two daily flights from the national capital -- to Dhaka on Wednesday.
Nearly 80 domestic and international flights received bomb threats in less than 24 hours that later turned out to be hoaxes, keeping thousands of passengers and security agencies on tenterhooks.
The minister's reaction came days after Rajinikanth praised Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin for "managing" senior DMK leaders in the party.
It is likely the airports - Chennai, Kolkata, Kochi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow and Guwahati - will be bid out for 30 years and the tariffs will be fixed upfront.
The Central Industrial Security Force on Thursday issued alert across all domestic and international airports in the country to step up security at these facilities in the wake of the Chennai blasts.
Vijay Swaminathan, hailing from Chennai, returned to the city after a brief visit to Singapore and Japan, where SARS has affected several people.
'It is truly unfathomable how this kid would come from a country with no chess culture and not only become World Champion, but inspire generations of Indian kids to push chess forward. The legend, @vishy64theking!'
Over three kg of gold, worth Rs 91 lakh, was seized on Sunday in two separate cases at Chennai and Kochi airports.
Dhoni made a stylish entry -- longs lock and sunglasses -- as fans flocked to Lucknow airport to catch a glimpse of the cricket great, who may be playing his final IPL season.
The patient has been isolated at a designated hospital and is currently stable, it said, adding that there is no cause for concern.
With six airports handed over to the Adani group for 50 years, the government is now all set to hand over another 25 airports to private players in a bid to 'monetise' them. Official figures reveal that since 2017-18, the government has spent and will be spending Rs 14,500 crore on significantly revamping infrastructure at most of these airports before handing them over to private players. The Airports Authority of India (AAI), which operates these airports for the government, has spent billions of rupees in building new terminal buildings, runways, reinforcing taxiways, upgrading aircraft landing systems, radars and a host of other heavy duty and capital intensive infrastructure works.
It is not a part of the current public health emergency reported by WHO which is regarding clade 1 of mpox, it underlined.
The employees associated with various unions of AAI have formed a joint forum and started the three-day-long strike in front of the Civil Aviation Ministry at Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan here and at AAI offices across the country.
Anil Patel, the secretary of Gujarat Cricket Association and Rohan Jaitley, son of late Arun Jaitley and the president of the Delhi and District Cricket Association are the two names in running to take over as BCCI secretary.
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