Akasa Air's launch of services is likely to be delayed further as the airline is expected to receive its first aircraft only in June or July, according to a senior DGCA official. The carrier, backed by ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, initially planned to start operations in June and then postponed the plan to July. A top airline official said it intends to start services in July. The Mumbai-based airline, registered as SNV Aviation, received the mandatory no-objection certificate from the civil aviation ministry in October last year.
The Boeing 737-800 aircraft had 184 passengers onboard and all are safe, an airline spokesperson said.
The ministry has asked the airlines to not to "take benefit of the situation" and charge higher fares for the tickets.
The bench asked the respondents to file their response to the petition which seeks the constitution of a committee to examine 'workable solutions' to ensure that a kirpan permitted to be carried on the flight is 'appropriately designed and crafted' and does not have a blade length beyond 4 cm.
"We will not regulate fares but there are cases of airlines charging very high fares in a particular route and such airlines will be asked to explain the reasons for that. They cannot charge such high fares without any valid reason," said a civil aviation ministry official.
The Tehelka magazine on Friday claimed some officials, bureaucrats and other VIPs had 'abused' their status to get free tickets and other facilities from a private airline in gross violation of service rules and propriety.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has released a draft procedure that calls for testing pilots, other aviation personnel and crew members for psychoactive substances before they take to the skies. The Indian civil aviation regulator has sought comments from stakeholders over the next 30 days before issuing a regulation to this effect. Asking airlines and airports to do random checks on crew and air traffic controllers, DGCA proposed that violators be suspended for a minimum of three years or their licence be permanently cancelled as maximum punishment.
The first hurdle is how long Jet Airways can enjoy rights over its parking slots at various airports.
This isn't the first instance of Vistara facing scrutiny from the regulator over improper pilot training.
In his petition, Kamra said he was banned by IndiGo for a six-month period before its internal committee even arrived at a decision while other airlines -- Air India, Spicejet and GoAir -- imposed an indefinite ban on him.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has sought a report of the incident from the airline.
Indigo has zero competition on 61.2 per cent of its 838 domestic routes.
In a statement, the DGCA said it will be conducting "random checks" in aircraft across the country to see if the COVID-19 protocol is being enforced or not.
Aviation regulator DGCA on Tuesday started the special audit of the facilities of Go First, which has sought approval for restarting operations. A team of officials from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) started the special audit of the facilities of Go First in Mumbai on Tuesday, according to an airline executive. The audit of the facilities will be done on Wednesday also.
An airline official said the ban is with immediate effect and is in addition to the 30-day ban it had imposed on the individual earlier.
Civil aviation authorities have asked all private airlines to withdraw the congestion surcharge of Rs 150 imposed per passenger, Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
IndiGo's Sharjah-Hyderabad flight was diverted to Karachi as a precaution on Sunday after pilots observed defect in one of the engines, officials of aviation regulator DGCA said.
A helicopter carrying pilgrims from Guptkashi to Kedarnath crashed on Tuesday amid poor visibility and seven people on board are feared dead.
The airline, which declared a partial lockout on Tuesday, has said it will start flying again from October 5.
The ministry and the civil aviation regulator have said the government will consider the airline's request for slots as per existing policy.
Government is considering setting up an airport economic regulatory authority to deal with tariff and service standards at airports, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
According to e-mails accessed by ANI, the Air India cabin crew supervisor had reportedly sent out emails on November 27 at around 1 pm to the head of the Inflight Service Department (IFSD), base operations in India, Lead HR head of IFSD, and head of the northern region of IFSD and of complaints (customer care), informing them about the incident.
From a surge in airfares to rattled aircraft lessors to thousands of employees staring at uncertainty, it has been a month of continued turbulence since cash-strapped Go First suspended flights from May 3. As the government and other stakeholders hope that Go First restarts operations at the earliest, plans are being worked out for the budget airline's revival. A section of Go First staff are optimistic about restarting of operations, another section are pessimistic about the airline's future course considering what had happened to erstwhile Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways, according to employees who spoke to PTI.
After a rap from the aviation regulator for neglecting safety issues, Kingfisher Airlines on Monday submitted a detailed response to DGCA giving time-bound plans to resolve the lapses and discrepancies identified.
Indian airlines will operate a total of 23,732 flights every week during the winter schedule, which is more than 8 per cent higher than the year-ago period, amid rising air traffic demand. The winter schedule 2023 -- effective from October 29 to March 30 next year -- for the scheduled carriers has been approved by aviation regulator DGCA. Go First, which stopped flying from May 3 and is undergoing an insolvency resolution process, will not be having any operations during the winter schedule.
Ailing Kingfisher Airlines will have to satisfy aviation regulator DGCA about safe flight operations and also make sure that its employees are not disgruntled before it resumes its services, Civil AviationMinister Ajit Singh said.
Whether this happens because DGCA actually cares about the future of the national carrier or for other motives is not clear.
The aviation regulator DGCA said on Friday that it was extending the suspension of scheduled international passenger flights in the country till July 31 but added that some international scheduled services on selected routes may be permitted on a case to case basis. Scheduled international passenger flights were suspended in India on March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Indian carriers transported 12.8 million domestic passengers in March 2023, a year-on-year growth of 21.41 per cent. India's largest carrier IndiGo shored up its domestic market share from 53.8 per cent in Q4 of FY22 to 55.7 per cent in Q4 of FY23, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data released on Monday.
On May 28, following the bomb threat, which later turned out to be hoax, all the passengers were evacuated through emergency slides from the aircraft at the Delhi airport.
After the accident on Friday, Virudhunagar MP Manickam Tagore, Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor alleged on Twitter that there were safety lapses on the part of the civil aviation ministry.
Grounded Go First's CEO Kaushik Khona has put in his papers, nearly seven months after the no-frills airline filed for insolvency proceedings. In an e mail to the airline's employees on Thursday, Khona said that November 30 is his last day at the company. Khona had returned to Go First in August 2020 as its CEO.
Giving a push to aviation infrastructure development, government is planning to build 10-15 greenfield airports and modernising 50 others in the non-metro cities over the next few years.
The engineers of Kingfisher went on a strike on Sunday to protest the non-payment of salaries since March.
'If the airlines are not given a clear deadline to change the altimeters by the DGCA, why should they do it voluntarily?' 'It means that the aircraft will be grounded for a while and lose money.'
SpiceJet is the only Boeing 737 MAX operator in India, with 13 aircraft of the type in its fleet and a total of 205 planes on order.
In the first half of this year, 33 pilots and 97 cabin-crew members failed their compulsory alcohol tests, which are conducted either before or after flights, according to data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). In contrast, in the first half of 2022, the DGCA data recorded only 14 pilots and 54 cabin-crew members being identified as intoxicated while on duty. This data has been reviewed by Business Standard. As per the DGCA rules, pilots and cabin-crew members have to undergo pre-flight breath-analyzer tests.
Aviation regulator DGCA on Saturday suspended the flying licence of beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines for failing to come up with a viable plan for its financial and operational revival and resolve the impasse withits employees over payment of their salary dues.
National carrier Air India became part of the 27-member global airlines grouping Star Alliance, as budget airline AirAsia India launched operations and Tata-SIA joint venture carrier Vistara received the flying permit and announced its intentions to start operations from January 9.
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