The watchdog has also asked the airlines to ensure various requirements are complied with by engineering and maintenance personnel with respect to 737 MAX planes.
Even before the holiday season has begun, all airlines have jacked up their fares on many busy air routes by 10-25 per cent over the past few days.
Now it is confirmed that all 22 people, including four Indian nationals and three crew members, have been killed in the tragedy.
Vishwanath Mala was with Air India between 1961 and 1998. He flew the aircraft for 15 years and retired as a senior executive. He spoke with rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa regarding the ongoing investigation and what the role of a pilot ought to be.
The search team has finally found the black box or the digital flight data recorder of the crashed Air India Boeing 737 plane from the forested regions near Mangalore airport on Tuesday, an official said.
A British national of Serbian origin, who had 10,000 hours of flying experience and had been operating in India for the last two years, commandeered the Air India aircraft, which crashed at Mangalore airport on Saturday.
Aviation regulator DGCA on Tuesday said it has imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on Air India for denying boarding to passengers holding valid tickets and thereafter not providing the mandatory compensation to them.
While Jet Airways continues to fly high with a dominating presence among airlines in India, it also leads in the number of passenger complaints.
Disciplinary action was taken against Passi after Spicejet wrote to the DGCA charging him with nepotism.
The Boeing aircraft EK530 with 350 passengers and 14 crewmembers on board encountered a weather cloud near Bangalore. A short period of heavy turbulence prior to descent into India caused minor injuries to about 20 persons, Emirates said in a statement.
All airlines operating from Delhi would collect the development fee of Rs 200 and Rs 1,300 from each departing domestic and international passenger, respectively.
An Air India pilot has been arrested in Delhi for allegedly using forged marksheets to procure a licence from the airline regulator. This is the second such incident in the past four days. Captain J K Verma was apprehended in Delhi on Saturday night after investigations into a complaint filed by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation which claimed that some of the pilots had forged marksheets to get their licence.
Air India passenger flights were barred from landing in Hong Kong between August 18 and August 31 after 14 passengers on its Delhi-Hong Kong flight of August 14 tested positive for COVID-19 post arrival.
He was also the first to be booked under the stringent Anti-Hijacking Act which had replaced the vintage law of 1982.
Asserting that it was not flying 'outdated' aircraft anywhere in the country, India's national carrier Air India said on Thursday it was operating flights strictly adhering to the Director General of Civil Aviation rules.
This announcement comes a day after the DGCA asked IndiGo to take 'appropriate action' after it found alleged violation of safety and social distancing protocols by mediapersons in the airline's Chandigarh-Mumbai flight that had actor Kangana Ranaut as a passenger.
These measures follow the Germanwings crash last month.
The two pilots of a helicopter, which flew Rahul Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh on Monday, were on Wednesday given a virtual clean chit by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, during a preliminary probe into the alleged violation of air safety rules that fuelled a controversy involving the Congress leader.The pilots of the state-run Pawan Hans Helicopters Limited, who appeared before the DGCA's Air Safety Wing in New Delhi, were cleared by a probe panel.
Airlines say they have accepted the directive, though many feel this would give away competitive information on the number of seats at each price point, which could have an adverse impact on business.
With the peak tourist season on the anvil, a new rule has come into effect to allow foreign airlines to mount additional capacity of up to 10 per cent of their entitlements during high air traffic.
Till now, aircraft that are more than 15 years old were not allowed to be imported
India cleared the release of a chartered North American aircraft carrying US Marines on Sunday afternoon. The chartered Boeing 767, carrying commandos of the US 205 Marine Unit, was made to land at Mumbai's Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport, for violating Indian airspace.
The airline filed a police complaint against the woman, who was travelling in business class.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has amended the Aircraft Rules to provide for the use of cellular phones by passengers even before the aircraft comes to a halt.
The data of the director general of civil aviation, which publishes monthly data on registration, deregistration and change of ownership of the aircraft, showed that in December 2008, Kingfisher returned six Airbus and one ATR aircraft to the lessors.
'Vital clues' have been collected by the high-powered committee of Directorate General of Civil Aviation, from the helicopter crash site in the dense Nallamalla forest range in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh on Thursday, official sources said.Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others were killed when their helicopter crashed in Nallamalla forest area on September 2.The five-member DGCA expert team is led by R K Tyagi.
An unprecedented decision to form a ministerial-level committee was driven by fears of witch-hunt by investigating agencies.
While all other domestic airlines made merry in the peak travel season, Air India's services were hit because of the pilots' strike.
"The AI865 flight on Thursday got delayed as it developed a technical snag. It had to return to the bay. Passengers started knocking on the cockpit door, asking and taunting the pilots to come out," said an airline official. "One male passenger even said that he will break open the cockpit door if the pilots didn't come out," the official said, adding the situation inside the plane "went from bad to worse".
The government is likely to set up a full-fledged inquiry committee to probe the helicopter crash in Arunachal Pradesh that claimed 17 lives.
In what may come as a relief for airline companies, the number of domestic air travellers between January and March showed a healthy increase over the same period a year ago, when the industry was feeling the heat of the global recession.
It takes only two hours - roughly the time it takes for a plane to fly from Delhi to Mumbai - for a pair of pilots to complete their training on the 737 MAX simulator at Boeing's centre in Noida, the only one of its kind in India. Going by this estimate, all the 90 Spicejet pilots who the civil aviation regulator barred from flying the 737 MAX can be retrained in 90 hours.
Despite private sector developer Delhi International Airport Ltd bracing for a long and foggy winter with added infrastructure, the shortage of CAT III pilots in some airlines could still mean long delays for passengers.
Two Air Traffic Control officials in Mumbai were on Tuesday taken off duty -- pending an inquiry by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation -- into the near miss between an Air India plane and a helicopter belonging to the President's entourage. The two officials have been 'de-rostered' during the inquiry, sources said while clarifying that they have not been placed under suspension. The identity of the officials has not been revealed.
Over 30 passengers have suffered ear and nose-bleed after the crew on Jet Airways flight 9W 697 reportedly forgot to select a switch that helps maintain cabin air pressure
Official sources said an ATC official had been suspended pending the DGCA probe, which would establish accountability and find out lapses in the system.
The King Air C90 12-seater aircraft had taken off from the Juhu airstrip on a test flight.
If all goes well, from December, drones can be used for purpose like mapping, surveying and photography, which till now was illegal due to absence of any guidelines.
The average fare on the Delhi-Mumbai route has come down to Rs 6,000, compared with a whopping Rs 15,000 in mid-November, according to an airline executive.
In a blow to airlines overcharging travelers during peak season, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), has mad eit mandatory to publish details of all-inclusive fares on the first day of every calendar month.
