The government on Tuesday restored the payment of productivity-linked incentives (PLI) to Air India's functional directors, five months after stopping it. With losses mounting, the Air India Board had approved a cut of up to 50 per cent in the monthly PLI for the airline's executive directors and other functional directors in September last year, as part of cost-cutting measures.
Private carrier Kingfisher Airlines hopes to fly to international destinations by mid 2007, once it receives delivery of Airbus A-330 wide-bodied aircraft.
Government has postponed by a month a decision to privatise four of the countrys biggest airports pending more inter-ministry consultations, Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Friday.
The commercial flight operations of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed Akasa Air will be launched in July instead of June. "As we get closer to the airline launch date, we can now confirm refined estimates on our timelines. "We expect our first aircraft delivery by early June 2022, with the intention to start commercial operations in July 2022," Vinay Dube, CEO, Akasa Air, told PTI.
Price appreciation since the aircraft order in 2005 could yield Rs 7,200-crore gain.
Days after exchange of words between the Planning Commission and the Civil Aviation Ministry, the process of Kolkata airport modernisation is all set to start with the Public Investment Board meeting in New Delhi later this week to give its nod to the Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion) project .
Cabinet approval for greenfield airports within the 150 km radius of an existing airport is being done away with, according to the new greenfield airports policy, which has recently been sent for Cabinet consideration by the civil aviation ministry. This would have serious implications for airports in large metro cities including Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai, where a second airport will eventually be a reality.
To meet the exigencies on highways, the civil aviation ministry has suggested to the surface transport ministry to earmark space for helipads every 100 kilometres on major national highways.
The plan, vetted by the finance and civil aviation ministries, is likely to include proposals relating to the nature of financial assistance it wants from the government, including equity infusion and soft loan.
Jet has pulled out flights from Northeast states and also cancelled its Srinagar flight, leading to reduction in capacity.
The international airport will initially focus on cargo exports as the passenger needs would be extensively served by the upcoming international airport near Panvel in Navi Mumbai, which is just 90 minutes' drive from Pune. The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation has issued a notice to begin the land acquisition procedure.
Worried over security of VIPs and movement of money in poll-bound Bihar, the Election Commission has written to Civil Aviation Ministry to deploy trained security personnel and baggage scanners at the unguarded state hangar in Patna.
The government has cleared the acquisition of 46 new aircraft worth over Rs 19,000 crore (Rs 190 billion) by three low-cost carriers: SpiceJet, IndiGo and Jet Lite.
The directive from the civil aviation ministry came after the airlines together failed to utilise over 13 per cent of the slots allocated to them last year, official sources said. The domestic carriers have already filed their summer schedules which shows a marginal increase in the number of flights each week -- from 11,048 last year to 11,116 this year.
Defending its decision to raise the number of seats under the India-United Arab Emirates (UAE) air services pact, the Civil Aviation Ministry, in a note to the Cabinet Secretariat and key ministries, has said no additional points of call have been allowed to the Gulf country.
Even as the labour ministry gave an in-principle approval to the civil aviation ministry's proposal to classify pilots as executives instead of workmen, the pilots' unions said they would respond strongly to the move.
IndiGo confirmed the incident but said the aircraft did not face any technical issue in the past.
Airline companies under the Federation of Indian Airlines plan to make a presentation to the civil aviation ministry saying they will be forced to axe 8,000 employees if the government implements the new ground handling policy from January 1, 2009. About 29 per cent of the 28,000-odd employees working in the private carriers are involved in ground handling.
Aviation consultancy CAPA on Thursday said allowing domestic airlines to take advance bookings from April 15 is "unfair" to consumers since a decision on lifting the nationwide lockdown is yet to be taken. During the lockdown period only special flights approved by aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation, medical evacuation flights and those carrying cargo, including medical equipment, to and from different parts of the country are operational.
AAI planned to achieve gross sales of Rs 7,760 crore (Rs 77.6 billion) in 2013-14 which is approximately 23 per cent higher than the target of 2012-13, the state-run airports body said in a release.
The government on Wednesday issued new guidelines for international arrivals amid the spread of mutant variants of coronavirus in many countries.
The government is likely to consider infusion of Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion) as equity in the cash-strapped Air India on Wednesday, but wants the airline to take "extraordinary" measures to achieve a financial turnaround.
For harried passengers flying peak hours from metros, no respite from delayed flights and landings is in sight.
Thackeray also said it was wrong to impose the lockdown suddenly and now it cannot be lifted all at once.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
Pant, a 1991-batch Indian Administrative Service officer of Rajasthan cadre, is currently secretary in the ministry of ports, shipping and waterways.
It is for the first time in the history of Independent India that not a single Muslim is part of the Union Cabinet.
Earlier, liquor bottles went missing from the same flight and Air India's Vigilance Department conducted an enquiry.
