With airlines reporting multiple technical malfunction incidents, aviation regulator DGCA on Monday said it conducted spot checks and found that there is an insufficient number of engineering personnel certifying planes of various carriers before their departure. Before each departure, an aircraft is checked and certified by an aircraft maintenance engineer (AME). The DGCA has now issued guidelines for airlines on the deployment of AME personnel and directed them to comply by July 28.
The ministry of civil aviation has eased the rules regarding drone operations in the country by reducing the number of forms that need to be filled to operate them from 25 to 5 and the decreasing the types of fees charged from the operator from 72 to 4.
The move will help mop up not more than Rs 10 billion, which is only a fifth of the capital requirement of the industry, led by Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines, say experts. The expected investment has been calculated on the basis of a 100 per cent premium on the current valuations of Jet Airways and Kingfisher -- two of the country's largest carriers by market share -- which require over Rs 50 billion.
Responding to a cabinet proposal to build a new airport in Jewar, Noida, Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), the joint venture that operates Delhi airport, has told the ministry of civil aviation that the expanded capacity of the modernised airport will take care of the entire traffic requirement in the 150-km catchment area around Delhi for the next 20 years. Jewar is 68 km from Delhi airport.
Highlighting that the nation is close to administering a billion COVID-19 vaccine doses, the Centre has urged states and Union Territories to focus on increasing the coverage of the second dose in light of adequate availability of shots.
A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justice Manmohan issued notice to Civil Aviation Ministry, DGCA and others and sought their response by October 30.
All civilian drone operations will be restricted only during day time and flying will be restricted within visual line of sight which usually would be 450 metres, the regulation says.
The Delhi high court on Friday called for strict action against those found violating masking and hand hygiene norms at airports and in aircraft, observing that the Covid-19 pandemic has not abated and keeps rearing its ugly head.
Domestic airlines are preparing to offer lower fares for passengers without check-in bags in a move to improve seat occupancy and market share. IndiGo chief executive officer Ronojoy Dutta indicated the airline's interest to offer zero bag fares in an interaction with Bloomberg. Regulatory caps on fares and capacity related to Covid-19 have prevented IndiGo from taking a decision and the airline is discussing the issue with the government, he said.
The Union Cabinet's nod is required to give effect to the government decision to allow private carriers to fly to Colombo, Civil Aviation Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy said on Wednesday.
These airports are those at Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy.
Minimum one-way air fares between Delhi and London are priced upwards of Rs one lakh in August due to limited number of seats, data collected by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) shows. The United Kingdom has included India in the amber list and the change came into effect from Sunday. With this, passengers from India needn't undergo institutional quarantine and can self-isolate at home for 10 days.
Indians being evacuated from Ukraine have been exempted from pre-boarding RT-PCR test, providing Covid vaccination certificates and uploading those on the Air Suvidha portal, the health ministry said.
DGCA rules require pilots to service a six-month notice.
The airline had made new pilots sign a bond of Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 14 lakh in the recent past.
FAA had downgraded India's safety ranking from category-II from -I after an audit revealed deficiencies in regulatory oversight.
An all-women pilot team of Air India will fly over North Pole on the world's longest air route and the flight from San Fransico (SFO) will reach Bengaluru on January 9 covering a distance of about 16,000 kilometres.
Existing norms mandate 2/3rd of members of an airline's board must comprise Indian nationals
"As Civil Aviation minister, I apologise to all those affected (by these incidents)," Ashok Gajapathi Raju told a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday evening, in an attempt to end the controversy.
The bureaucrat has alleged that another Indian family was also offloaded as they offered biscuits to the child to console him.
The Irish firms had sought to deregister SpiceJet.
In order to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, the West Bengal government on Thursday announced that it has suspended all the flights coming to Kolkata airport from the United Kingdom from January 3 onwards till further notice.
This is part of the initiatives that the ministry is undertaking to use technology in order to make airport check-in seamless and formation of a no-fly list.
The amount of money lying unclaimed with the Life Insurance Corporation of India dwarfs the budgets of many ministries. There was Rs 21,539.5 crore which lay unclaimed with India's largest insurance company, according to details in the initial public offer (IPO) document it filed over the weekend. The regulatory documentation is ahead of LIC selling shares to the public through the stock exchange for the first time this financial year. This will be India's largest ever public listing.
The first two special flights that will operate from Thursday to evacuate Indians stranded in the UAE due to the coronavirus pandemic
'People have been flying for years on the basis of a police clearance and an airport entry pass.' 'Then they came out with a convoluted thing -- that your police clearance must be from your place of residence.' 'Now if a pilot is sitting in Delhi but is from Timbuktoo, the papers will have to come from there.' 'So at any point, you have a certain number of pilots sitting on the ground because his AEP has expired and the papers haven't come.' Revealed: India's bizarre processes to get pilots to fly planes.
According to officials, more clarity might be required with regard to foreign fund managers in the context of Air India divestment.
A panel led by the secretaries of the DEA and the DIPP would conduct a quarterly review on the pending proposals.
Sources at Mumbai airport said seat occupancy has declined from around 70-72 per cent to 60-64 per cent in last three-four days as passengers are postponing or cancelling trips.
SpiceJet strts trimming workforce.
After more than two decades and three attempts, the government has finally sold its flagship national carrier Air India, and it is deja vu for Maharaja as it returned home to its founding father the Tata group. Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy (JRD) Tata founded the airline in 1932 and named it Tata Airlines. In 1946, the aviation division of Tata Sons was listed as Air India, and in 1948, the Air India International was launched with flights to Europe. The international service was among the first public-private partnerships in India, with the government holding 49 per cent, the Tatas keeping 25 per cent and the public owning the rest. In 1953, Air India was nationalised and for the next over four decades it remained the prized possession for India controlling the majority of the domestic airspace.
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