The government is looking at a new timeline for Air India disinvestment and financial bids will be invited in the coming days, Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Friday. Noting that there is no choice but to either "privatise or close" Air India, he said the government will have to keep the airline running till it gets divested. "We are looking at another timeline now, what is called data room for prospective bidders to look at... that is opened up, 64 days for the financial bids to come in. "After that it is the question of taking a decision and handing over the airline," the Minister of State for Civil Aviation said.
The Day in Politics: Featuring Dr Singh, Messrs Kejriwal and Sisodia and Mamatadi.
First and business class air travellers would find flying costlier.
The move is expected to give a major relief to Air India, which suffered a huge financial loss of around Rs 491 crore.
Thirteen people accompanied Rajapaksa to the Maldives. They arrived in an AN32 aircraft, according to TV news channels.
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 coronavirus-induced suspension of scheduled international passenger flights has been extended till October 31, India's aviation regulator DGCA said on Tuesday. "However, international scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on a case-to-case basis," the Directorate General of Civil Aviation added. Scheduled international passenger services have been suspended in India since March 23, 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Amid reports of sighting of more debris by a Russian search team, divers on Tuesday recovered two more bodies from choppy waters in the JavaSea, though there was still no trace of the crucial black box of the crashed AirAsia aircraft that crashed nine days ago.
Thousands of travellers suffer flight cancellations, delays and soaring ticket prices due to Pakistan's decision to close its airspace for flights to and from India.
The civil aviation authority confirmed that there are no survivors.
Scheduled international passenger services continue to remain suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Tehelka magazine on Friday claimed some officials, bureaucrats and other VIPs had 'abused' their status to get free tickets and other facilities from a private airline in gross violation of service rules and propriety.
Wide-body aircraft like B747 and A350 have a bigger fuel tank and can therefore travel longer distances in comparison to narrow-body aircraft like B737 and A320. A wide-body aircraft also needs a longer runway length to take off or land. The table top runway 10 of the Kozhikode airport is approximately 2,700 metres long. Wide-body aircraft operations were permitted at this airport from 2019.
IndiGo had on May 9 said the boy was denied permission to board the Ranchi-Hyderabad flight as he was visibly in panic.
That it has been threatening to review this rule for a while is old hat anyway.
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
Sources said the process has taken time because of a delay in leasing of aircraft. As per the original plan the aircraft were to be leased through GIFT City, Gujarat, but this is proving costlier than doing it offshore.
The strike would impact all the operations of the airlines. The union has threatened strike if its demand for continuing the employees' present permanent jobs with the state-run AAI is not heeded to and they have to join private airport operators like Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) and Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL).
Junior Civil Aviation Minister G M Siddeshwara told Parliament that disciplinary action has been taken against the employees.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for leasing out airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram through public-private partnership (PPP).
Tata group-owned AirAsia India's inability to get approval for international flights is hurting UDAN, the Indian government's regional air connectivity project that also aims to link cities in Northeast India and Odisha to places abroad. Sources said the civil aviation ministry is waiting for the low-cost airline to come under the full ownership of Tata Sons and become part of Air India, the former state-owned carrier now owned by the private conglomerate, before allowing it to operate international flights. Tata owns 84 per cent stake in AirAsia India and it is understood that the group will complete the process of buying rest of the stake by July's end.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) intensified its campaign in Lebanon with targeted airstrikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut, hitting key weapons depots and terror infrastructure overnight, according to a report by Times of Israel.
In the previous decade, the government, with Praful Patel as the civil aviation minister, saw the introduction of an irrational 5/20 policy.
The move comes after the government rejected its plan to operate 20 flights a week.
Fadnavis had gone to Latur in Marathwada region when the mishap occurred.
Eyewitnesses of the Nepalese passenger plane crash have said that they had a close shave as the Yeti Airlines plane, with 72 onboard, including five Indians, crashed near their settlement and a bomb-like blast was heard.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the Rs 1,260 crore New Integrated Terminal Building (Phase-1) of the Chennai International Airport, a facility that will boost passenger handling.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez on Monday inaugurated the Tata Advanced System Limited (TASL)-Airbus facility in Vadodara to manufacture C-295 military aircraft in India.
India will keep its scheduled international passenger flights suspended till January 31 next year, aviation regulator DGCA said on Thursday.
The government has allowed 11,000 more seats on Dubai-India sector.
India has put on standby three ships and a maritime surveillance aircraft for assistance in the search operation after an AirAsia flight with 162 people on board on Sunday went missing en route from Indonesia to Singapore after losing contact with air traffic controllers.
The fire was noticed at around 9.10 pm and it was doused within half an hour, officials said adding that no arrival flight was affected.
The civil aviation ministry has received several complaints on the ongoing bidding process for modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports and it has forwarded them to appropriate authorities for examination.
If the Ministry of Civil Aviation has its way, the proposed regulatory authority for the sector will act as an arbitrator in case of disputes over airfare. The airlines, however, will be free to decide on ticket pricing.
He also assured the kin of victims that steps would be taken to get them compensation in line with an international convention of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). Taking stock of the crash of the Dubai-Kozhikode AIE flight in Kozhikode and the relief measures, the minister said pilot in-command of the plane, Captain Deepak Vasant Sathe, among those killed in the accident, was one of the most experienced commanders with more than 10,000 flying hours.
However, the tender criteria demands that an entity must be eligible to conduct Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations in order to become eligible. Currently, no drone companies are eligible to do BVLOS operations, reports Arindam Majumder.
The manufacturer of Bell helicopters has offered its assistance to authorities in probing the crash of the Bell-430 chopper which claimed the lives of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajashekhar Reddy and four others.
The incident was not logged in any logbook and it was not reported by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) either, DGCA said.
The coronavirus-induced suspension of scheduled international passenger flights has been extended till July 31, aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation said.
