Aviation consultancy CAPA on Thursday said allowing domestic airlines to take advance bookings from April 15 is "unfair" to consumers since a decision on lifting the nationwide lockdown is yet to be taken. During the lockdown period only special flights approved by aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation, medical evacuation flights and those carrying cargo, including medical equipment, to and from different parts of the country are operational.
The airline management has now sought a meeting with civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju to present the airline's plan.
Shares of low-cost airline IndiGo hit record high on the bourses soon after reports of pilot crisis at Vistara emerged. The development also saw airfares surge by around 25 per cent on select routes. Shares of IndiGo hit a lifetime high of ~3,68.5 on April 2, 2024, and has gained 2.4 per cent on the bourses in April.
'If a drone can't fly airspace without the DGCA knowing about it, how did such a big plane get airborne?' 'The DGCA knows this aircraft had undergone major repairs. Now, the question is who allowed it.' 'The DGCA cannot come out of this.'
Domestic airlines flew 1.29 crore passengers in April, a rise of more than 22 per cent compared to the year-ago period, according to official data released on Friday. However, the domestic air traffic number last month at 128.88 lakh was marginally lower than the 128.93 lakh recorded in March. In April 2022, the number of passengers carried by airlines stood at 105.47 lakh.
The FAA's International Aviation Safety Assessment team revisited India to confirm and validate the action taken on earlier concerns since an audit in March 2009.
A day after the Faridabad air crash that claimed 10 lives, the government On Thursday created an independent panel to probe major aviation accidents, separating the role of a regulator and an investigator which was being performed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation alone so far.
The civil aviation ministry had last week suspended all flights between the European country and India from December 23 to December 31 as a mutated variant of the coronavirus was detected there.
In the season of aviation action, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed Akasa Air has secured the crucial no-objection certificate (NoC) from the civil aviation ministry. It expects to start operations next summer. The airline will now have to apply for the Directorate General of Civil Aviation for operations permit. Aviation sector has been in the limelight with the Tata Group winning the Air India bid last week.
India's domestic air passenger traffic nearly doubled to 1.25 crore in January compared to 64.08 lakh recorded in the year-ago period, according to official data released on Monday. In January, IndiGo saw its domestic market share decline for the fifth consecutive month at 54.6 per cent. It carried 68.47 lakh passengers last month.
The Kalrock-Jalan consortium - new owners of Jet Airways - has got an assurance from around 30 airports that if the airline restarts operations, 170 pairs of slots can be made available. However, whether those slots will be according to the airline's demand will depend on the order of the insolvency court, which is slated to come next week. Sources said the new management feels it is extremely important that some of those slots are restored or else its business plan of operating Jet as a premium carrier will not be viable.
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.
The ministry of civil aviation has recommended three levels of unruly behaviour by passengers, each with a different duration of ban on flying.
The sources said that during the boarding, the male passenger behaved in an unruly manner and touched the female cabin crew member inappropriately.
Following the incident at little past 1700 hours, both runways at the airport were shut for a brief period, and one of the runways resumed operations at around 1847 hours, the officials said.
In India currently, Air India, Jet Airways and its subsidiary JetLite are members of the IOSA and conform to the safety standards set by this audit on a regular basis.
Recently, there have been technical mishaps, including an electrical fire and a brake problem, involving the aircraft.
Regulator said that no permit will be given until it submits a revival plan.
The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) could once again allow domestic airlines to charge passengers for on-board services like preferential seats and drinking water.
Wadia group-owned Go First will temporarily suspend flights on May 3 and 4 amid severe fund crunch, the airline's chief Kaushik Khona said on Tuesday.
Among the impacted flights, Air India's flight AI 185 from the national capital to Vancouver that was to depart early in the morning was rescheduled.
The Nepalese citizen was handed over to security agencies on arrival at the airport in New Delhi.
'We have informed the government multiple times that the situation in the US and India are different.' 'Here, there will be a 500 MHz gap in the frequencies which will safely allow aviation without interference.'
SpiceJet apologised for the inconvenience caused to the passenger and will also provide a full refund. As the passenger kept waiting in the lavatory, a cabin crew slipped in a note asking the passenger not to panic and that despite trying their best, the door could not be opened.
The aviation regulator DGCA had on May 21 issued seven bands of ticket pricing with lower and upper fare limits.
Concerned over the fallout of the Red Sea crisis and severe shortage of containers against the backdrop of a steep decline in merchandise exports in August, the Union government is pulling out all the stops to find a solution. To begin with, the government has devised a strategy aimed at boosting container supply and supporting exporters.
Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation has reportedly ordered a probe into the incident, which took place on Wednesday afternoon.
A number of countries like Canada, Turkey, Belgium, Italy and Israel have banned flights from the UK as the British government warned that the potent new strain of the virus was "out of control" and imposed a stringent new stay-at-home lockdown from Sunday.
In his order last week, Civil Aviation Secretary K N Srivastava ruled the meanings of transaction fee, commission or convenience fee were the same -- payment of remuneration to an intermediary.
Aviation regulator DGCA has allowed IndiGo to wet lease wide-body Boeing planes from Turkish Airlines for up to six months and has rejected the domestic carrier's request for leasing the aircraft for up to two years, according to sources. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) turned down the request of the country's largest airline to wet lease the aircraft for a longer period, citing that the move could become diversion of traffic rights in collusion with a strong foreign carrier that will mainly feed the latter's hub abroad with more passengers from India, the sources said. IndiGo, which currently has only narrow-body planes in its fleet, decided to lease wide-body aircraft to operate more flights on international routes to meet rising demand.
International Lease Finance said on Monday it had removed one of six aircraft stranded in India by the dispute over the suspension of operations at Kingfisher Airlines. This decision comes after the DGCA's meeting with Airports Authority of India and the civil aviation ministry.
Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday flew on SpiceJet's special flight between Delhi and Gwalior using Boeing's 737 Max plane that has been allowed to return to service after two and half years. All Max planes were grounded in India by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on March 13, 2019, three days after the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max plane near Addis Ababa, which had left 157 people, including four Indians, dead. Along with Scindia, SpiceJet CMD Ajay Singh and Boeing India president Salil Gupte were also present on the special flight on Tuesday.
'DGCA cares a damn for human life.'
The aviation regulator is investigating the incidents and both planes, with Pratt and Whitney engines, will fly only when cleared by it, the officials said.
The FIA termed as 'illegal' the clearances granted to the airline by the Finance Ministry and the Foreign Investment Promotion Board and called the grant of Air Operator's Permit or the flying licence to it 'fraudulent'.
However, the government did not expect the low fares to breach the lowest fare bucket given by the airlines to aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
Air India would start inspecting its six Boeing 787 Dreamliners from Tuesday.
Kingfisher chief executive officer Sanjay Agarwal met Director General of Civil Aviation Arun Mishra in New Delhi for 45 minutes to apprise him of the prevailing scenario facing the airline, but sources said he gave no information about any commitment by the airline's parent company, UB Group, on financing the revival plan.
As of now, there have been no problems with the aircraft.
Earlier this month, Air India issued show cause notices to the Pilot-in-Command and four crew members of the flight and derostered them pending investigation.
