For the first time, the country's largest airline IndiGo will soon lease up to four wide-body Boeing 777 planes to cover the shortfall in its international operations, according to officials. The airline said the wet-leasing of "certain aircraft" will be done as an interim measure. IndiGo, which has so far only been operating narrow-body Airbus planes, ATRs and freighters, will now be having wide-body aircraft in its fleet.
A passenger on board an IndiGo flight to Mumbai from Nagpur allegedly attempted to remove the cover of the emergency exit when the aircraft was approaching for landing in Mumbai, the airline said.
The DGCA has ordered an inquiry after a passenger, who was supposed to take an Indigo flight to Patna, boarded another flight of the airline and landed at Udaipur.
Prima facie, he died of "cardiac arrest following sudden unexpected loss of heart function", said KIMS-Kingsway Hospital where he was rushed.
Indian airlines flew over 4.5 per cent more passengers in the 11 months of this year compared to the same period last year, with IndiGo retaining its top position in market share.
Low cost start-up carrier IndiGo is set to take off in August and the carrier aims to break even within 18 months of its flights being operational.
IndiGo carried 69.09 million passengers last year, compared to 67.9 million in 2019.
Three passengers who travelled on Delhi-Jammu flight on Tuesday, six passengers who were on Bengaluru-Coimbatore flight on Wednesday, two passengers who were on Delhi-Coimbatore flight on Wednesday and one passenger who was on Bengaluru-Madurai flight on Wednesday tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the airline said.
The coming years will be among the most exciting of your professional lives, IndiGo's new chief executive officer (CEO) Pieter Elbers wrote to the airline's staff after taking charge on Tuesday. Elbers, who spent three decades at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, replaces Ronojoy Dutta at the top post. "Earlier, IndiGo communication summarised it all in just three words: 'Towards new heights' and-let me add here: 'across new frontiers'. "With that vision in mind, you should feel assured that the coming years will be among the most exciting of your professional lives," Elbers said.
IndiGo has restored annual increments for more than 4,500 pilots as a financial turnaround helped the airline make a profit in Q3 FY23 after three quarters of loss. An email from the airline's management last week informed pilots of the restoration from April. "The component of annual increment for Indian captains (Rs 10,000 per month) and Indian first officers (Rs 5,000 per month) on the Airbus and ATR fleet which was stopped due to Covid will restart from April 1, 2023," the airline's senior vice president (flight operations) Ashim Mitra said in the staff email.
Pakistan has extended the closure of its airspace for Indian flights until June 24, 2025, citing the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) rules that restrict such closures for a month at a time. The ban, which was first imposed in May after the April 22 Pahalgam terrorist attack, applies to all Indian-registered, operated, owned, or leased aircraft, including military aircraft. The decision comes after an IndiGo pilot requested permission to briefly use Pakistani airspace to avoid turbulence during a hailstorm, but the request was rejected.
An Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner experienced an uncommanded deployment of its Ram Air Turbine (RAT) shortly before landing. The DGCA is investigating the incident, raising safety concerns.
Airfares have nearly doubled in a matter of days on routes hit by the cancellation of 200 weekly flights linking Mumbai airport to 12 cities. The fares have soared as high as 193 per cent following a recent government order to cancel flights to ease "persistent congestion" that was causing delays. Aside from the reduction in flights on 12 routes, two destinations - Hubli and Jabalpur - have lost connectivity with Mumbai since last week, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium's data reviewed
Westberg is the eighth airline passenger arrested in India in the past three months for alleged unruly behaviour.
Against the backdrop of a significant number of flights getting delayed and cancelled and passengers facing tough times, the regulator has come out with a set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
Some aircraft technicians at IndiGo are on sick leave since Friday demanding a revision in salaries. The protest comes days after the airline partially restored salaries of its pilots and cabin crew and made changes to its human resource (HR) policies. Some technicians in Hyderabad reported sick on Friday night while those from other bases skipped work on Sunday demanding a revision in salary, an industry source said.
The ministry also said it remains committed to full transparency relating to the ongoing investigation and will follow all mandated protocols and norms in the larger interest of the highest standards of passenger Safety and convenience.
'A last-second aborted landing at Mumbai airport left us speechless.'
In the short video clip, other crew members could be seen shouting at the passenger after he hit the pilot.
Air India has cancelled eight flights, including four international services, on Friday due to enhanced maintenance and operational reasons, the airline said.
Whatever the final outcome of this unhappy episode, one thing is clear: a glass once cracked cannot be fixed. The trust is gone forever and the relationship between two old friends lies in tatters. For now, IndiGo, the airline, will have to learn to soar with two angry and distracted commanders, says Anjuli Bhargava.
Wadia Group-owned Go First Airways' (Go First) insolvency plea could trigger a 'momentum rally' in shares of rival airlines, Interglobe Aviation (parent company of IndiGo) and SpiceJet, as they look to gain bankrupt airline's market share, said analysts. On the bourses, shares of InterGlobe Aviation hit a 52-week high of Rs 2,235.95, surging 8 per cent on the BSE in Wednesday's intra-day trade, before settling 4.5 per cent higher at Rs 2,164 apiece. Those of SpiceJet and Jet Airways, meanwhile, rallied up to 6 per cent in the intra-day trade, and ended 1 per cent and 5 per cent higher, respectively, following the development, which was announced post market hours on Tuesday.
IndiGo's management is of the opinion that Saturday's flight delays caused by sick leaves taken by many in the cabin crew are just an aberration. The airline's on-time performance nosedived to 45 per cent on Saturday as a large part of the cabin crew reported sick to participate in Air India's recruitment process. Privately, Air India executives denied holding interviews on Saturday and the airline did not issue any statement.
Air India and Air India Express on Tuesday progressively resumed their services to the Middle East, with flights to Dubai and Muscat, respectively, as countries in the region reopened their airspaces.
Air Deccan, which was renamed Simplifly Deccan after the merger with Kingfisher last year, is now called Kingfisher Red. According to the data released by the civil aviation ministry on Thursday, IndiGo's market share is 10.3 per cent, while that of Air Deccan trailed behind at 10.2 per cent.
IndiGo on Monday said that around 30 aircraft are grounded due to "supply chain disruptions" and the country's largest airline is evaluating wet leasing of planes and other options to boost operations. At the end of September, the carrier -- also the world's seventh largest in terms of daily departures -- had 279 aircraft in its fleet. It operates more than 1,600 daily flights and currently flies to 100 destinations, including 26 international ones.
Airlines waive cancellation and rescheduling fees and boost flight capacity from Srinagar.
At Rs 919 crore, InterGlobe Aviation, the parent firm of low-cost airline IndiGo, posted its best-ever fourth quarterly net profit in the January-to-March quarter (Q4) of financial year 2022-23 (FY23). The bottom-line, however, was lower than the Street's expectations where estimates ranged from Rs 1,160 crore to Rs 2,180 crore. On the bourses, shares of IndiGo have added just 30 paise (0.01 per cent) since the announcement of the Q4-FY23 results on May 18.
The on-time performance (OTP) of Indian carriers took a major dip in January as dense fog foiled their flight schedules. According to data from the Ministry of Civil Aviation reviewed by Business Standard, five out of six major Indian carriers - IndiGo, Air India, AIX Connect, Akasa Air, and Vistara - recorded their lowest OTPs in at least the last 11 months. In response to queries, an Air India spokesperson said that during this winter, northern India experienced unusually prolonged periods of dense fog affecting traffic at the airline's two largest hubs -- Delhi and Mumbai.
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.
With only a few days to go before the country celebrates Holi, several airline companies offered discounts on fares on the occasion of the festival of colours. While two airlines are providing discounts on both domestic and international networks, another has the offer only for the domestic sector. Low-cost airline Akasa Air said it is offering an all-inclusive one-way fare starting at Rs 1,499 on domestic routes.
IndiGo's president Aditya Ghosh shares the growth plan.
With tailwinds of strong operational performance and favourable market conditions, InterGlobe Aviation on Wednesday reported a record profit after tax of Rs 3,090.6 crore in the three months ended June. The parent of the country's largest airline also reported its highest-ever quarterly total income of Rs 17,160.9 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal, according to a release. The carrier, which had 316 planes in its fleet at the end of June 2023, had registered a loss of Rs 1,064.3 crore in the 2022 June quarter.
Indigo has zero competition on 61.2 per cent of its 838 domestic routes.
Experts say the margin was impacted primarily because of currency depreciation, rise in the price of aviation turbine fuel and pressure on account of fare wars in the home market.
The incident took place in flight number 6E 308 from IGI Airport at around 7:56 am on Friday.
Cooking oil is often discarded after being used for frying at home or in restaurants. However, a refinery of IndianOil has now won a certification to use the same oil to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), the company chairman Arvinder Singh Sahney said.
Mahindra & Mahindra on Saturday said it has decided to rename its new electric vehicle brand as 'BE 6' but noted that it will continue to contest strongly in court with InterGlobe Aviation for the trademark 'BE 6e'. InterGlobe Aviation, which owns IndiGo airlines, has taken the automaker to court over the usage of 6E in its new EV brand.
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.
Responding to that, Rama Rao suggested the airlines recruit more staff who can speak the local language like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada on regional routes.
