Akasa Air's launch of services is likely to be delayed further as the airline is expected to receive its first aircraft only in June or July, according to a senior DGCA official. The carrier, backed by ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, initially planned to start operations in June and then postponed the plan to July. A top airline official said it intends to start services in July. The Mumbai-based airline, registered as SNV Aviation, received the mandatory no-objection certificate from the civil aviation ministry in October last year.
The Delhi high court on Wednesday agreed with the contention of Akasa Air that the DGCA is not completely barred from taking action against pilots who violate the terms of their employment agreements. However, the court did not grant any immediate relief to Akasa Air which sought direction to the DGCA and Union Ministry of Civil Aviation to take action against its pilots who have resigned without serving the notice period, saying it will first decide the issue of jurisdiction raised by the aviation sector regulator. Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said since the Directorate General of Aviation (DGCA) has contended it has no jurisdiction to consider a representation made by the airline against the defaulting pilots under the extant law as it was a contractual dispute, the court will have to first decide the issue of jurisdiction before passing any other direction.
The guidelines would also enable the proposed merger of national carriers Air-India and Indian.\n
The civil aviation ministry is hopeful of further reduction in the price of aviation turbine fuel this year.
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.
Four Indian airports are currently equipped to handle these super jumbos.
A panel led by the secretaries of the DEA and the DIPP would conduct a quarterly review on the pending proposals.
The on-time performance (OTP) of Indian carriers took a major dip in January as dense fog foiled their flight schedules. According to data from the Ministry of Civil Aviation reviewed by Business Standard, five out of six major Indian carriers - IndiGo, Air India, AIX Connect, Akasa Air, and Vistara - recorded their lowest OTPs in at least the last 11 months. In response to queries, an Air India spokesperson said that during this winter, northern India experienced unusually prolonged periods of dense fog affecting traffic at the airline's two largest hubs -- Delhi and Mumbai.
The civil aviation ministry assured employees of state-owned carriers Air-India and Indian on Wednesday that the planned merger of the two would not involve retrenchment, cuts or losses in pay scale, perks or allowances.
A senior government official confirmed that after a meeting with other stakeholders, the decision has been taken and airlines and airport authorities have been informed about it.
The woman said she was constrained to approach the court because Air India and the DGCA failed to treat her with care and responsibility after the incident.
With low-visibility conditions significantly disrupting flight operations at the Delhi airport, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday said all stakeholders are working round-the-clock to minimise fog-related impact as well as passenger inconvenience, and asserted that unruly passenger behaviour is unacceptable.
Facing threat of terror attacks, the home ministry has ordered security audit of nearly 100 civil airports and decided to bring all such facilities under the Central Industrial Security Force cover gradually.
Unions boycott launch of new fleet to protest the merger of Indian Airlines and Air India.
The Airports Authority of India would enter the capital market to raise resources for funding the modernisation of about 30 airports across the country, for which an estimated Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion) is required.
Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), which operates India's largest airport, dismissed the expert committee report as "inaccurate", claiming it relied on "probabilities, hypothesis, and conjectures" rather than empirical data or complete documentation.
The civil aviation ministry on Saturday said it was holding discussions with the Maharashtra government on launching an intra-state airline to operate services on feeder routes.
No domestic commercial passenger flight would be allowed to operate in the country from March 25 onwards in order to restrict travel amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Union civil aviation ministry said in a statement on Monday.
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.
India has announced suspension of all tourist visas till April 15 in a bid to contain the spread of the virus.
In 2015, India's domestic aviation market clocked 81 million flights.
The new guidelines were issued a day after the unearthing of a terror plot targeting US-bound airliners by police in London.\n\n
The safety and security of citizens is primary for the government, he said.
The Prime Minister's Office had raised concerns over the bilateral air services agreement (ASA) signed between India and Abu Dhabi earlier this year, raising the number of flights from 13,700 to 50,000 each week.
A draft bill to set up a powerful Civil Aviation Authority for better regulation of the aviation sector is in an advanced stage of getting the official nod, official sources said on Thursday.
The disappointment of the year is government's failure in finalising the re-drafted aviation policy.
Limits imposed on domestic airfares will be removed from August 31, after a span of approximately 27 months, the Union aviation ministry said on Wednesday. "The decision to remove air fare caps has been taken after careful analysis of daily demand and prices of air turbine fuel (ATF). "Stabilisation has set in and we are certain that the sector is poised for growth in domestic traffic in the near future," Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Twitter.
The government on Monday decided to scrap the tenders for privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports, and invite fresh bids within a fortnight, highly placed sources said.
The vertical distance between two aircraft has been decreased to 1,000 feet (from the earlier 2,000ft) for planes flying over 29,000 ft.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, approved the proposal of the civil aviation ministry to remove IA and A-I from the divestment roster.
The government has allowed 11,000 more seats on Dubai-India sector.
When the domestic passenger flights resumed on May 25, the ministry had stated that only one check-in baggage and one hand baggage per passenger must be allowed.
The department of personnel and training has asked the Union Public Service Commission to recruit such specialists through "lateral entry" mode in 12 government departments/ministries, he said.
