Experts expect a net loss of Rs 26.7 billion for IndiGo and Rs 10.1 billion for SpiceJet in Q1FY21 driven by low traffic volume, low fleet utilisation and poor coverage of fixed costs.
A strong dust storm and gusty winds followed by rain hit Delhi-NCR on Friday evening, causing trees to be uprooted in several parts and leading to traffic congestion. Thunderstorms caused power disruptions in several parts of the city, primarily due to trees and branches falling on electricity cables. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued an orange alert, recommending people stay indoors and avoid unnecessary travel.
With IndiGo executing its long haul low-cost plans the airline will certainly need a lot of cash going forward.
Key stimuli of the government's relief package will be a tax break on jet fuel, waiver of parking and landing charges at airports for the next six months and deferment of payment to oil companies by three months.
Airline to deploy around 50 planes in the next seven months
With airlines reporting multiple technical malfunction incidents, aviation regulator DGCA on Monday said it conducted spot checks and found that there is an insufficient number of engineering personnel certifying planes of various carriers before their departure. Before each departure, an aircraft is checked and certified by an aircraft maintenance engineer (AME). The DGCA has now issued guidelines for airlines on the deployment of AME personnel and directed them to comply by July 28.
'We have seen some videos wherein mediapersons are standing too close to each other in the 6E264 flight on Wednesday. It seems to be a violation of safety and social distancing protocols'
At present, IndiGo operates over 17 flights between India and the Gulf
"We offer our sincere regrets to the affected family for the unfortunate experience and as a small token of our appreciation of their lifelong dedication would like to offer to purchase an electric wheelchair for their son," he added.
From croissants to Galouti kebabs and Medu vada, Indian carriers, both low-cost and full-service, are revising their in-flight menus to offer passengers a differentiated fare as competition is heating up amid the boom in air travel with the waning of Covid-19. On Monday, Air India, which was taken over by the Tata Group on January 27, unveiled its new domestic in-flight menu comprising gourmet meals, new appetizers, desserts, and local dishes. Air India's economy class passengers would now be served dishes such as Mushroom cheese omelette, Dry jeera aloo wedges, and Garlic tossed spinach and corn for breakfast, and Vegetable biryani, Malabar chicken curry, and mixed vegetable poriyal for lunch.
Engine snag forces IndiGo to ground 7 new aircraft
The airline with a 66-aircraft fleet said on Monday that it would be inducting 16 planes this year and the remaining 12 by 2014.
Though India's airlines are certainly bleeding, they haven't yet faced the ignominy of shutting down.
With this, the biggest buyer of Airbus SE A320neo planes seems to be moving away from Pratt & Whitney engines, which have been experiencing glitches. CFM International will deliver the first engine by 2020.
Coordination between defence and civilian authorities has freed up airspace for commercial airlines in India, resulting in routes becoming shorter and costs coming down, apart from mitigating pollution. "Due to various restrictions of the military, only about 58 per cent of the Indian airspace was being utilised. It is close to 70 per cent now," said an official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI). Officials of the AAI said to date 119 routes had been shortened. Sources said since December 2020 the cumulative savings of airlines had been close to Rs 200 crore while there was a reduction in emission of around 45,000 tonnes of carbon.
Despite having started at least a decade later than Jet Airways, IndiGo accounts for the lion's share in the domestic market
The airlines have instead suggested compulsory personal protective equipment-like suit, gloves and mask for flyers and crew members.
Markets regulator Sebi has kept in abeyance the processing of Go Airlines' draft papers for an initial public offer worth Rs 3,600 crore. Go Airlines (India) Ltd, which has announced rebranding itself as 'Go First', filed preliminary papers for an initial share sale worth Rs 3,600 crore in May. The proceeds will be mainly used to repay dues. The "issuance of observations (has been) kept in abeyance", according to Sebi's latest update on processing status of Go Airlines' draft offer documents. The information was updated on June 25. In Sebi parlance, issuance of observations implies its go-ahead for the IPO.
Flights from Delhi or Bengaluru, while they may still fly over Iran, depending on the route, have alternative paths that may take them through Central Asia or northern routes.
It is for the first time in the history of IndiGo that we have undertaken such a painful measure, CEO Ronojoy Dutta said.
Amid a massive global outage that hit operations of airlines, banks and businesses across the globe, Microsoft on Friday said that it is aware of the issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform.
IndiGo on Monday said it will refund all customer credit shells, which were created when flights were cancelled due to the coronavirus lockdown earlier this year, by January 31, 2021. The airline in a statement said it has already processed close to Rs 1,000 crore of refunds, which is approximately 90 per cent of the total amount it owed to its customers.
Protocols for the Bomb Threat Assessment Committee (BTAC), convened in the event of a bomb threat call to an aircraft or airport, have been tweaked to better tackle the spate of the ongoing 'random' Internet-based threats being made to various Indian airlines, official sources said Tuesday.
SpiceJet, Air India Express and IndiGo will operate special flights from Hungarian capital Budapest and Romania's Bucharest on Monday and Tuesday to evacuate Indians stranded in Ukraine due to the Russian military offensive.
The charges for the extra seat will be effectively up to 25% of the original booking cost. This offer is effective from July 24, 2020.
The airline is not convinced that it will have a sizeable passenger traffic to make wide body operations profitable
Reddy, who represents Andhra Pradesh's Anantapur seat in the Lok Sabha, reported late for the flight and therefore, was not allowed to board it, a source said.
The revised policy, which has come into effect since last week, means passengers who are looking to skip the long queues at airports will have to shell out a fee for it. For IndiGo, the lowest seat fees is Rs 100 while for SpiceJet it is Rs 99.
DGCA has also permitted the airline to deploy newly-inducted planes for capacity expansion.
IndiGo had last week offloaded 70 passengers from a Raipur -bound flight from Hyderabad alleging "unruly behaviour".
The airlines have waived charges for transport of relief cargo to Chennai.
'Everyone says never waste a crisis.' 'When we went into Covid and we were in total lockdown, we were at work.' 'The planes were not flying and we wondered what to do.' 'We looked at each of our performance metrics -- what are customers complaining about, how do employees feel, how do investors feel?'
Debt-ridden national carrier Air India tops a brand reputation survey.
Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed new airline Akasa is in talks with US aerospace company Boeing for buying up to 100 737 Max aircraft. Former Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube and his family members are promoters while ex-IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh is a board member of the airline. The airline is in negotiation with Boeing and has reached out to the government to recertify the aircraft which has been grounded since 2018 after two crashes killing 349 persons, according to sources in the know.
SpiceJet's resurgence, once the new funding is in place, has the potential to disrupt the Indian aviation market in 2024 as the airline will bring its grounded aircraft back to service and lease as many planes as possible to be competitively relevant, aviation consultancy firm Capa India said on Thursday. "Although the market for procuring aircraft in 2024 is exceptionally tight, we expect that SpiceJet will bring stored aircraft back into operations, and will wet or dry lease as much capacity as possible, in order to be competitively relevant. "This will have a material impact on the industry structure, and possibly on domestic profitability," Capa India said in its report.
IndiGo has been facing a probe by Sebi ever since a public spat came to light between two founders of the airline, including over certain related party transactions involving one of the warring promoters.
An integrated team of 200 staff crunches data to minimise disruption for 149 planes, but airport infrastructure poses a challenge
The DGCA advised airlines to remain ready to operate additional flights from the Srinagar airport if the need arises.
Indigo, the largest player in the domestic aviation space, cannot afford to ignore new entrant Vistara.
The airline is trying to save on wage costs by cutting the normal notice period of six months by about half for pilots who have already resigned.
