There is no clarity on the stand taken by the PM on many issues plaguing the aviation sector
A week after the devastating Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad claimed 270 lives, the debris, including the ill-fated aircraft's tail fin, is still lying at the site as investigators looked for clues to establish the exact cause behind the accident, said officials on Thursday.
The Centre asked state governments on Friday to review and rationalise their taxation policy on jet fuel and land acquisition practices to encourage the expansion of civil aviation sector so that they could themselves reap the benefits of its unprecedented growth.
Stating that the Centre was planning construct 15 more airports under the Greenfield Airport Policy, Singh said the civil aviation ministry is in process of identifying the most suitable low cost viable model for development of small airports to increase regional connectivity.
When passengers book a flight, they could receive a secure 'journey pass' on their phone that stores all relevant travel information including passport data, seat assignment.
The SOEC clause says only airlines owned by a country or its citizens can fly from the nation concerned to India and use the quota of seats allotted under a bilateral pact between the countries.
Scindia claimed Tharoor is "lost in his esoteric world of thesaurus", and for him "data mining of selective press articles from the internet qualifies as "research".
Five pilgrims and a pilot onboard a helicopter had a narrow escape when the aircraft on its way to Kedarnath made an emergency landing on the highway in Rudraprayag district on Saturday after developing a technical snag during take-off, officials said.
Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel on Friday said the airline industry in India has grown by 400 per cent in a short span of about six-and-a-half years.
The Reserve Bank of India's decision to allow airlines hedge jet fuel in global markets came in for praise from the industry and the civil aviation ministry, but end-users are unlikely to benefit in the form of lower airfares.
On the issue of allowing domestic carriers to fly overseas before their completing 5 years of domestic operations, the document does not mention anything.
Aviation security regulator BCAS on Wednesday slapped fines totalling Rs 1.80 crore on IndiGo and Mumbai airport operator MIAL over the incident of passengers having food on the airport's apron. The apron is the area around the aircraft where it has finally parked for deboarding.
Vishwas Kumar Ramesh, the sole survivor of Air India's AI 171 crash, said he still cannot believe how he miraculously survived the accident of the ill-fated London-bound flight in which 265 people lost their lives.
India's scores in the ICAO's air safety oversight audit will improve substantially as the international watchdog's just-concluded validation mission was highly successful as per the initial reports, regulator DGCA said on Wednesday. ICAO is the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Under its Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) Continuous Monitoring Approach, an ICAO Coordinated Validation Mission (ICVM) was undertaken from November 9 to 16.
India's aviation safety ratings have been downgraded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) from the top to the second category, which would affect expansion of flights by Indian carriers to the United States.
Aviation Working Group (AWG), a global aviation leasing body comprising major planemakers and lessors, on Monday further downgraded India as lessors have not been able to repossess their planes from Go First more than four months after the airline filed for insolvency. The leasing cost stands as a prominent expense for Indian airlines. With AWG's downgrade, it is likely that lessors will increase the aircraft leasing rates for Indian carriers.
Former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, who died in a tragic plane crash in Ahmedabad on Thursday, joined the list of several top Indian politicians and prominent personalities who lost their lives in aviation accidents.
The specific reasons for the crash of the Boeing 787-8 aircraft flying from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick will be known only after the completion of the detailed probe by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.
'...rectification has to happen then and there, and that takes additional time.'
Maintaining that civil aviation flew thousands of tonnes of equipment and passengers across the country on a daily basis, he said grant of infrastructure status would help the industry in its dealings with the RBI as well as the commercial banks, both in the private and public sectors. On Kingfisher's global plan, Mallya said the airline would launch services to Hong Kong and Singapore as soon as its aircraft were ready.
In 2015, India's domestic aviation market clocked 81 million flights.
'It is indeed a fact that several issues were routinely red-flagged by DGCA, and were addressed by the (Kozhikode) airport operator. These pertain to excessive rubber deposits, water stagnation, cracks and other routine issues,' Puri tweeted a day after the plane crash in Kozhikode that claimed at least 18 lives.
Aviation security watchdog BCAS has recommended installation of scanners based on computer tomography technology at airports whereby passengers will not be required to take out electronic devices from their hand baggage before going through the scanner. Currently, the scanners used at airports provide a two-dimensional view of the objects inside a hand baggage. Jaideep Prasad, Joint Director General of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), on Wednesday said the regulator has proposed installing scanners based on computer tomography technology at airports that will provide a three-dimensional view of the objects in hand baggage.
In a written reply, Singh said the 5G C-band spectrum has the likelihood of interfering with the current radio altimeters installed on the aircraft.
Aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked Vistara to submit a daily report on flight cancellations and delays as the Tata group airline cancelled more than 50 flights for the second straight day on Tuesday amid non-availability of pilots.
An IndiGo flight from Delhi to Srinagar encountered severe turbulence after a sudden hailstorm. The pilot requested permission from Lahore Air Traffic Control to use Pakistani airspace to avoid the turbulence, but the request was rejected. The flight, carrying over 220 passengers, including Trinamool Congress MPs, landed safely at Srinagar Airport. The incident is being investigated by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
So far this week, more than 90 flights have received bomb threats and most of them have turned out to be hoaxes.
A preliminary investigation into the Air India Flight 171 crash in Ahmedabad reveals that both fuel switches were cut off before the crash, followed by pilot confusion. The report also indicates that fuel samples were satisfactory and no immediate action is recommended for Boeing 787-8 operators.
Facing headwinds due to pilot exits, Akasa Air on Friday said it had approached the Delhi high court seeking interpretation and clarification with respect to mandatory notice period requirements for pilots and that the move was not against the DGCA or the civil aviation ministry. Akasa Air, which started flying in August last year, has initiated legal action against a "small set of pilots" who left the carrier without serving their notice periods that led to cancellation of many flights. In a statement, the airline said it sought relief from the Delhi high court to stop the unethical and illegal practice by this set of pilots.
'CORSIA has set impossible targets. It tries to limit countries to the emission levels of the number of aircraft that they had in 2020. That has to be opposed.'
A Nepalese private plane crashed and caught fire shortly after taking off from the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on Wednesday, killing 18 people aboard, including a child, and seriously injuring the pilot -- the only survivor.
A total of Rs 30,000 crore was allocated for five years to Air India by the United Progressive Alliance government in its second term.
The DGCA had conducted an enquiry into alleged lapses in conversion training of some pilots. After the conversion training, a narrow body pilot can operate wide body aircraft.
When specifically asked about the reason for the crash and whether Air India is privy to any preliminary findings, Chandrasekaran said, "One would have to wait for the probe to conclude."
The octogenarian was asked to wait due to heavy demand for wheelchair.
Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Tuesday sparked a controversy by admitting that he carried matchboxes in airplanes, without them being confiscated, after he became the Union civil aviation minister.
The aircraft, which departed from New Delhi, was in Pakistani airspace when a male passenger fell seriously ill, according to sources from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
The agencies have also found some common lines and words used in these fake threats like "bombs", "blood will spread everywhere", "explosive devices", "this is not a joke" and "you will all die" and "bomb rakhwa dia hai" (Hindi for bomb has been placed) among others.
