Latur and Nanded in Marathwada region of Maharashtra would soon be on the aviation map with the launch of flights from this metropolis to these towns, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel has said.
In a bid to bring down the cost of air operations, Aviation and Petroleum ministries will meet FM to get ATF notified as 'declared good'.
Issues raised by the industry, like rationalisation of the eight per cent central excise on jet fuel, still remain to be addressed. As a result of the government abolishing five per cent customs duty on aviation turbine fuel from Tuesday, state-run oil firms have cut jet fuel prices by Rs 2,100 per kilo litre, on top of the 17 per cent price reduction announced late last week.
Maintaining that the air cargo and some other areas in the Indian aviation sector were very weak, the government on Thursday said it was mulling the opening of these areas to private and foreign investment.
Though NOC was issued by the Ministry last week, this was the first formal statement by the AirAsia CEO on microblogging site Twitter.
With airfares spiralling, members of a Parliamentary panel grilled top officials of the Civil Aviation Ministry and demanded quick action to curb overpricing of air tickets.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) suspended the licences of 92 pilots in 2022 for violating safety norms, which was more than double the 2021 figure. The number of scheduled flights (domestic and international) in India increased by 32.74 per cent to 1.3 million in 2022, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium. A DGCA official stated that the minimum period of licence suspension in 2022 was one month and the maximum was three years.
Even in the domestic aviation scene, consolidation talks are on among some private airlines.
Deploying additional Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel, providing real-time updates through social media, adding more immigration counters and ensuring 100 per cent manning of immigration counters - these are some of the steps that the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) is now taking in coordination with other stakeholders to avoid congestion at major airports during the upcoming festival season. During the last year's festival and winter season, major airports in the country suffered from congestion due to lack of sufficient airport infrastructure, inadequate X-ray screening machines, bunching of flights at peak hours, as well as inadequate CISF and immigration personnel, the MoCA stated on Thursday. Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, after last year's congestion issue, had asked major airports - including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai - to identify bottlenecks and augment capacity to meet the growing passenger demand.
An airline official said there were 292 passengers, including 8 infants onboard the plane.
The presence of an engine maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) facility in India could have prevented Go First airline from going "belly up", as sending engines abroad for servicing is not an efficient way to operate a carrier, Piyush Srivastava, senior economic advisor, Ministry of Civil Aviation, said in a statement on Tuesday. On May 3, Go First suspended its flights and filed for insolvency, squarely blaming engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney (PW) for its cash crunch. The airline claimed that about half of its 54 aircraft were grounded on May 3 due to a delay in the supply of engines by the US-based company. PW has denied the charges.
The incident came to the notice of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) only on January 4 and the latest actions are for violations of various norms.
The threats via microblogging platform X came a day after three international flights originating from Mumbai received bomb threats, causing trouble to hundreds of passengers and airline crew.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Tuesday issued specific measures for aviation sector players to mitigate the risk of runway incursions at Indian airports. The measures include activating stop bars by Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) to inform aircraft when not to proceed, establishing contingency plans in case stop bars malfunction, establishing runway safety teams at airports, and conducting comprehensive training programs for pilots, ATC personnel, aircraft maintenance engineers, and airport drivers.
The missing plane could possibly be located on Monday after Nepal Telecom tracked down the cellphone of the airplane's pilot Captain Prabhakar Ghimire through the Global Positioning System network.
Mumbai airport, which has limited capacity for expansion, is being expanded to handle 40 million passengers annually by 2010.
Limits and high taxes on FDIs have led to lesser investments in the Indian aviation sector.
The planes had come on the same runway during take-off from the airport. The DGCA has asked UAE's General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) to share its investigation report on this incident.
Scheduled international flights have been suspended in India since March 23 last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
'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.
This is the second time in less than a week that the watchdog has taken enforcement action against the airline in connection with unruly passenger behaviour.
As Go First awaits the NCLT verdict on its voluntary insolvency resolution plea, lessors have sought deregistration of nine more aircraft of the crisis-hit airline. In one week, various lessors have approached aviation regulator DGCA for deregistration and repossession of a total of 45 planes of Go First. The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) is set to pronounce the order on the carrier's petition on Wednesday.
Says banks strong enough to tackle the problem on their own
The sources said that an ATC posted at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi was subjected to the drug test.
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.
Meeting on Tuesday to decide on letting foreign airlines buy into domestic ones.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on Tuesday as the Monsoon Session of Parliament gets underway next week with the united opposition set to corner the National Democratic Alliance government on issues ranging from the NEET paper leak case and railway safety.
The Centre on Thursday said Indian passengers from Ukraine can return via Qatar, with aviation industry experts stating that civilian flights will restart from Ukraine only when its airspace opens.
Indian airports have been at a disadvantage because of high taxes, cumbersome visa and foreign exchange norms, losing out to peers in the Gulf.
The DGCA will probe the incident and the air traffic controller concerned has been derostered, one of the officials told PTI.
The prevalent practice is that airlines have to pay between Rs 4,000 and Rs 4,500 per filled seat as departure tax.
Civil Aviation minister Praful Patel on Wednesday said the modernisation and restructuring of major airports has started with Delhi and Mumbai airports.
Tata Group-owned Air India will buy 250 aircraft, including 40 wide-body planes, from Airbus as the airline expands its fleet and operations. This is the first time in more than 17 years that Air India has placed an aircraft order. It is also the first order placed by the carrier under the ownership of Tata Group. On Tuesday, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said Air India has signed a letter of intent to acquire 250 aircraft from Airbus.
The 'Maharishi Valmiki International Airport, Ayodhyadham' has become the 68th civil airport terminal in the country to come under the umbrella of the specialised aviation security group of the central force.
The bodies of the last four of the trapped labourers were pulled out from the site of the avalanche-hit Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp in Chamoli on Sunday, taking the death toll to eight as authorities ended the nearly 60-hour rescue operation.
Among executives who have been approached are former president and CEO of IndiGo Aditya Ghosh, Wolfgang Prock Schauer, current president and Chief Operating Officer at IndiGo and Sanjay Kumar, Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer of IndiGo.
The last commercial flight between India and Afghanistan was operated by Air India on Kabul-Delhi route on August 15, the day Kabul fell to the Taliban.
No major relief for airlines from the Budget.
Indian Air Force fighter planes will be on standby to keep a close watch on any suspicious activity in the Delhi sky, including UAVs or drones, as the national capital gets ready to host the G20 summit, a senior official from a department engaged in airport operations said.
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