With Air India's Gulf monopoly under threat and likely to end very soon if the civil aviation ministry has its way, the state-owned airline is now pitching aggressively for direct flights to the US and Australia to make up for the loss.
Playback singer Sonu Nigam on Friday lashed out the Jet Airways for suspending the crew members, who allowed him to perform impromptu on the aircraft's address system.
SpiceJet announced it has started a five-day "1+1 offer sale" where it was offering one-way base fares starting as low as Rs 899, excluding taxes, on its domestic network.
A day after Air-India gave away its entire Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) deal for 50 aircraft to American company Boeing
They say it will have severe impact on their financial strength
Air India Express on Thursday cancelled 85 flights or around 23 per cent of the total daily capacity as the disruptions due to the cabin crew shortage continue and said Air India will operate services on 20 of its routes to minimise inconvenience to passengers.
The facility will be available for domestic as well as foreign carriers flying in Indian skies.
According to the resolution plan, the airline is planning to start with six to seven aircraft on domestic routes and looking to restart international service within six months of resuming operations.
New airline Akasa Air on Monday said it is on track to receive its first Boeing 737 Max plane by mid-June and launch commercial operations by July. The airline on Monday released the photographs of its first Max plane from the Boeing production facility in the USA's Portland as it gets ready for delivery. "The airline recently reaffirmed its commitment of being on track to receive its first aircraft in India by mid-June and launch commercial operations in India by July 2022," its statement mentioned.
Go First chief executive officer Kaushik Khona and tribunal-appointed interim resolution professional Abhilash Lal on Thursday reached out to the airline's staff, seeking their support for revival. While Khona said the company had taken all steps for the airline's revival, Lal put forward the view it would have to raise funds. Employee engagement took place a day after the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted the airline's insolvency plea on Wednesday and ordered a moratorium on recoveries.
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.
Pakistan's national flag carrier on Thursday suspended flight operations to Afghanistan due to what it called "security concerns", hours after the Taliban government threatened to ban the airline unless it reduced the fare on the Kabul-Islamabad route to previous levels.
Govt gave 36,000 seats per week more than inter-ministerial group's recommendations.
The first to take off will be Air Pegasus, promoted by Bengaluru-based ground-handling firm Deccor Aviation.
Domestic carriers seek week's time for suggestions on fares.
The government proposes to divest 76 per cent of Air India, along with its shareholding in Air India Express and its ground-handling subsidiary, AISATS.
At a meeting with airline chief executive officers and top officials here, the Civil Aviation Ministry also decided to amend Aircraft Act and Rules to safeguard the interests of aircraft leasing companies, many of which have started imposing stringent conditions for leasing planes to Indian carriers in the aftermath of Kingfisher Airlines shutting down.
The government has requested the Civil Aviation Ministry to reduce the number of flights from these states in view of high prevalence of coronavirus cases there, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J C Madhuswamy said in a statement.
Akasa Air's plane occupancy, or load factor, improved the most among all major carriers in April compared to the last month. Load factor signifies the percentage of seats that the airline has been able to fill in its planes. The Vinay Dube-led carrier, which started commercial flights in August last year, saw its load factor jump by more than 11 per cent in April, according to the Ministry of Civil Aviation's data
The warning had come after SpiceJet's dues to AAI (including interest at 12 per cent) exceeded Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) this month -- from Rs 230 crore (Rs 2.3 billion) early December last year.
The airline informed the ministry that it would operate 75 planes by April-end.
'The lay of the runway is not at all safe.' 'Even operating a 737 is dangerous there.' 'During the monsoon, they must ban landing on runway 10.'
A day after FIPB cleared the Tata-Singapore Airlines' (SIA) airline venture, Tata group Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata and SIA chief Goh Choon Phong on Friday met Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh exuding confidence of launching flights by May-June next year.
A free and open aviation market, where the government keeps the interest of consumers higher than saving any airline.
