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.
Petrol and diesel price on Sunday was hiked again by 35 paise a litre and the auto fuels now cost a third more than the rate at which ATF is sold to airlines. The fourth straight day of 35 paise per litre hike sent petrol and diesel rates to record highs across the country. The price of petrol in Delhi rose to its highest-ever level of Rs 105.84 a litre and Rs 111.77 per litre in Mumbai, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers.
Tata Group-owned Air India will buy 250 aircraft, including 40 wide-body planes, from Airbus as the airline expands its fleet and operations. This is the first time in more than 17 years that Air India has placed an aircraft order. It is also the first order placed by the carrier under the ownership of Tata Group. On Tuesday, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said Air India has signed a letter of intent to acquire 250 aircraft from Airbus.
Rhe unruly passenger was handed over to the security personnel after landing at the Delhi airport.
Air India has given more time to pilots to accept the revised compensation structure, which has been opposed by two pilot unions, according to a source. The decision to provide more time to pilots who are yet to sign the new contracts also comes days after Air India organised a town hall meeting with many pilots to discuss their concerns. The source said the airline has given time till the end of this week for signing the new contracts apparently due to requests from people who had not earlier accepted the revised compensation structure.
Air Marshal Denzil Keelor was an Indian Air Force legend. His nephew Basil Keelor, son of another war hero Wing Commander Trevor Keelor, remembers a remarkable officer and gentleman.
Returning home after a five-day high-profile state visit to China, Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu on Saturday struck a defiant note saying that his country may be small but 'doesn't give them the license to bully us'.
'I remember AK came on set one day; one of his films had released the previous day and was not doing well. He was very attached to that film.' 'I felt he was low and that affected me.'
Government to ask airlines to educate flyers. 'It will be an exhaustive charter which will tell the passenger about all their rights, like whether they are eligible for a refund when there is a delay in flight, what to do in case of a flight delay and other in-flight etiquette.'
While the number of operational airports in the country will rise to 131, other smaller towns too are seeing a surge in connectivity.
Air India will require more than 6,500 pilots to operate 470 aircraft that are to be supplied by Airbus and Boeing in the coming years, according to industry sources. Seeking to expand fleet as well as operations, the airline has placed orders for acquiring a total of 840 aircraft that includes an option to buy 370 planes. This is one of the largest aircraft order by any airline. Currently, Air India has around 1,600 pilots to operate its 113 aircraft fleet and in recent times, there have been instances of ultra-long haul flights getting cancelled or delayed due to shortage of crew.
The safety and security of citizens is primary for the government, he said.
Ms Swaraj was a conscientious woman who understood suffering and pathos and attempted in her inimitable way to mitigate them, recalls Rup Narayan Das.
If Ahmedabad is India's preferred candidate, as seems likely, hosting Olympics 2036 should give it a leg up: A bigger airport, a better metro network, more hotels, flyovers and so on, observes T N Ninan.
A ministry's internal note proposes caps on minimum and maximum fares airlines can charge, keeping in mind their cost structure, profit margin and ensuring the last minute fares are not out of bounds of passengers.
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.
Etihad, Emirates and Qatar Airways have combined hired more than 100 Indian pilots in the last six months.
When the Tatas re-boarded Air India on January 27 last year, the price of aviation turbine fuel was at over Rs 80,000 per kilolitre. Rupee was trading at around Rs 74 to a US dollar. The Omicron variant of Covid-19 was in prevalence - barely a week earlier, India had reported over 340,000 cases on a single day. Seven-day home quarantine of international travellers was the norm.
The government was also working on a package to promote connectivity and airports in the North Eastern states
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has sought a report of the incident from the airline.
'The recent price hike would only be beneficial if the airlines continue to operate at 80 per cent airline capacity. An increase towards 90 or 100 per cent airline capacity would again add pressure to the fares as demand remains muted. Also, we are in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year which is a seasonally weaker quarter,' says an analyst.
IndiGo continues to fly high as the top airline in India while crisis-hit SpiceJet has some good news.
The Air India Group has started vacating its offices, which are currently being operated from government-owned properties, from this month, as part of its strategy to consolidate workspaces across the country. The loss-making Air India and its international budget arm Air India Express were taken over by the Tata Group on January 27 this year, after successfully winning the bid for the airline on October 8, last year. Besides these two airlines, Tata Group also holds a majority 51 per cent stake in Vistara, its joint venture airline with Singapore Airlines (SIA), and a 83.67 per cent stake in budget carrier, AirAsia India.
The top court also sought the assistance of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who was present in the case, in formulating the standard operating procedure (SOP) and fixed the plea for hearing after the summer vacation in July.
Under a Horizontal Aviation Agreement between India and the EU, New Delhi allows European airlines to operate flights between India and any EU member-state.
Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday said it has issued a show cause notice to Air India regarding two incidents of passenger misbehaviour onboard a flight from Paris to New Delhi last month.
In recent times, there have been various incidents of unruly passengers onboard domestic and international flights.
The airline said it has filed a police complaint about the incident, but did not specify when the 30-day ban came into effect.
'IndiGo 2018 is a harsh, ultra-lean, mean, zero asset, fighting machine with aspirations of taking on the global long-haul low-cost market.'
Singapore Airlines plans to add at least seven more weekly flights to Singapore from India -- five from Delhi and two from Bangalore -- from September, a company official said.
Sunil Bhaskaran, AirAsia India's chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD), is the front-runner to head the low-cost carrier that will take birth after the merger of Air India Express and AirAsia India, sources said. In a show of confidence, the airline's board extended Bhaskaran's tenure by three years -- until March 2025 -- in a meeting held earlier this year, according to the documents reviewed by Business Standard. Moreover, AirAsia India's board of directors has increased Bhaskaran's salary twice in 2022 -- first in January by 5 per cent and then in June by 7 per cent, the documents showed.
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.
A passenger on board the Delhi-Mumbai flight told ANI that the flight AI-805 was delayed from its original schedule of 8 pm to 10.40 pm first then 11.35 pm then 12.30 am and then finally it took off at 1.48 am from Terminal 3 of the airport in Delhi.
IndiGo's size should be compared with global carriers, and not other domestic airlines, chief executive officer Pieter Elbers said on Tuesday, adding that such benchmarking will help India transform its airports into aviation hubs. Elbers flagged the tendency to scrutinise domestic competition, assess fares on domestic routes, and determine if they are high. "But if we want to build some hubs, we should have a broader look," he said during a panel discussion at a convention organised by All India Management Association (AIMA).
Two unions representing Air India pilots have asked members not to accept the revised compensation and employment offer, calling the company's proposals "unfair labour practices." They said any coercion on pilots to sign the offer would lead to industrial unrest. The Tata group airline announced on Monday a new salary structure for pilots and cabin crew.
Being touted as a competitor to the country's busiest Delhi airport -- which handles approximately 1,200 flights a day -- the Noida airport was expected to start flight operations by the end of this year. But supply-chain disruption, caused by pandemic and subsequent global upheaval, has hit the pace of construction at the airport which is coming up in the Jewar area of UP's Gautam Budh Nagar, some 75-km from the Delhi airport.
IndiGo was set up in 2006 by businessman Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal, a former CEO for US Airways Group.
Air India will purchase 220 planes from Boeing for $34 billion, with an option to buy 70 more aircraft that could take the total transaction value to $45.9 billion, a deal that US President Joe Biden described as a "historic agreement". While announcing the Boeing-Air India deal on Tuesday, Biden also asserted that together with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he was looking forward to deepen the ties between India and the US. As per an announcement from the White House, Boeing and Air India have reached an agreement under which the airline will purchase 190 B737 MAX, 20 B787, and 10 B777X for a total of 220 firm order valued at $34 billion at list price.
In an internal communication to airlines' employees, he reflected on the urinating incident to say that "the repulsion felt by the affected passenger is totally understandable and we share her distress.
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