Chief executive officers of airlines have asked the government to bear 50 per cent of three months' salaries of employees.
Talks gain ground of strategic stake sale to foreign investor.
Air India, SpiceJet, IndiGo and AirAsia India ready to fill in the gap.
Earlier in the day, an IndiGo A320 passenger aircraft landed successfully at 1.32 pm at runway 08/26 of the under-construction Navi Mumbai International Airport, paving the way for the Navi Mumbai International Airport Ltd (NMIAL) to seek an aerodrome licence from the aviation safety regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to start commercial flight services.
The fresh bout of trouble has forced IndiGo to ground aircraft periodically since July, and on August 20, the number of grounded aircraft touched nine
With the Middle East tensions flaring up, Air India has temporarily suspended its Tel Aviv flights and airlines have charted alternative flight paths to avoid the Iranian airspace.
IndiGo on Friday said it will not charge any fees to change time or date on domestic tickets that are booked between April 17 and April 30.
Heavy rains and thunderstorm on Monday brought Delhiites a much-needed respite from the lengthy spell of sweltering heat, but it also affected road and air traffic during the morning rush hours, and brought down houses and trees, leaving at least eight people injured.
At present, six A320 Neo of IndiGo & GoAir are grounded waiting for engine replacement
IndiGo has proposed to issue 185,000 shares worth to Chief Executive and Whole-time Director Ronojoy Dutta under the company's Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP). The shares that can be exercised at a price of Rs 765 apiece is worth Rs 14,15,25,000. Dutta can exercise 25 per cent of that at the end of first year, 35 per cent at the end of second year, and the remaining in December 2023 when his current tenure ends.
The new visa-free regime allows travellers to stay for up to 60 days instead of only 15 earlier.
DGCA rules require pilots to service a six-month notice.
The international operations of Air India seem to be the main attraction for IndiGo, which has also flagged concerns about some foreign overseas airlines being allowed "disproportionate access" to the Indian market.
The addition of eight new services would take the total number of flights operated by the IndiGo to 633
"In a civilised society fisticuffs have to be condemned ...action has to be taken," Raju told reporters.
The issues include not getting refunds on airline and hotel bookings, getting charged a service fee even if airlines have waived cancellation charges and so on. Complaints are piling up on Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels as more and more people cancel their travel plans due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Once the coronavirus lockdown is over in India and commercial passenger flights are permitted again, IndiGo will deep clean its aircraft more frequently, stop in-flight meal service for a brief period and will fill a maximum 50 per cent capacity in airport buses, the airline's CEO Ronojoy Dutta said on Friday. "In situations like these, companies do not manage to growth or profitability but to liquidity. That means our singular focus is on cash flow. We are examining all our fixed costs and looking for ways to minimise them," he said.
Budget carrier IndiGo has assured its employees that it will not make any deduction in their salaries or leaves due to the suspension of domestic flights till March 31. The government's decision to suspend domestic flight would come into effect from midnight Tuesday, as part of larger efforts to curb spreading of coronavirus infections.
IndiGo's share sale will raise the company's retained earnings to Rs 2,680 crore.
The airline has adopted a counterintuitive strategy of adding new aircraft and expanding capacity amid the slowdown, which seems to be paying off.
Long-haul low-cost carriers like Scoot and AirAsia X offer a similar configuration.
The aviation ministry is not in the business of regulating tariffs, says its president Aditya Ghosh.
Airlines are slashing salaries and re-negotiating vendor contracts as drastic fall in passengers has hurt revenue. Go First has cut staff salaries by around 16 per cent while IndiGo and SpiceJet are enforcing a leave without pay (LWP) policy and pay by the hour structure respectively to prune expenses. Vistara, which reversed pay cuts for junior staff including managers and cabin crew in March, is not touching employee salaries at the moment and instead focusing on vendor renegotiation and maximising cargo revenue. An Air India executive said efforts are on to pay salaries by 7th or 8th of June.
Cyclonic storm Fengal has commenced making landfall close to Puducherry and it may approximately take 4 hours for it to cross the coast completely, an India Meteorological Department (IMD) official said. The process of the cyclone's landfall commenced at about 5.30 pm on November 30. The IMD said the forward sector of spiral bands associated with the cyclone has entered into the land and is likely to move west-southwestwards and cross north Tamil Nadu-Puducherry coasts between Karaikal and Mahabalipuram close to Puducherry as a cyclonic storm with a wind speed of 70-80 kmph gusting to 90 kmph during next 3 to 4 hours.
The DGCA conducted the spot checks as there have been many technical malfunction incidents in Indian carriers' planes during the last 45 days.
"The return fare on economy class to most European capitals from Mumbai are close to 50,000 plus. If an LCC can offer direct connectivity for a basic fare of 25,000 with additional top ups for meals, baggage and blankets, which further takes the fare to, say, 35,000, it is still a value deal."
The Congress on Thursday claimed its leader Pawan Khera was deplaned from a flight to Raipur, where he was going to attend the party's plenary session.
Flight services at Mumbai airport were severely impacted on Monday due to low visibility after heavy rains in the city, leading to runway operations being shut for over an hour and approximately 50 flights being cancelled, sources said.
SpiceJet promoter Kalanithi Maran would need to invest at least Rs 1,500 crore (Rs 15 billion) almost immediately to stabilise the airline.
Air India (AI)'s rise could be at the expense of three "super-connector" hubs - Doha in Qatar, and Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the UAE - as the Indian passenger would any day prefer direct flights of their national airline that is providing excellent on-time service, Arved von zur Muehlen, chief commercial officer of Saudia Airlines, said on Thursday.
The carrier's total income rose over 28 per cent to Rs 8,229.4 crore in the three months ended December 2018.
IndiGo revamps website, Jet ties up with Twitter
Airlines sought a limited period concession of the standing rule of slot allocation, which mandates that firms must operate at least 80 per cent of their allocated slots.
At the heart of the strategy is the basic fundamental of keeping costs for long-haul flights low.
It dismissed reports suggesting a stake sale as 'baseless'.
India's biggest airline IndiGo is set to file the prospectus next week for a domestic stock market listing.
IndiGo and Jet Airways took the second and third rank, alternatively, during this period.
First it was Citibank which ended its exclusive tie-up with Jet Airways, after 12 years. Now it is the turn of American Express to go airline-agnostic -- despite having a co-branded card with troubled carrier Kingfisher Airlines.
The DGCA is conducting special audit of all airlines and airports which are in monsoon-affected areas in the wake of multiple landing incidents across the country.
Southwest Airlines remains the world's biggest low cost carrier (LCC), according to Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA).
