Amid mounting safety concerns and the cancellation of at least 66 flights that were to be operated with Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, DGCA officials held a detailed review meeting with top Air India and Air India Express executives.
French authorities launched a judicial investigation into the conditions and purpose of the trip, with a unit specialising in organised crime investigating suspected human trafficking.
Addressing close to 700 employees and the leadership team across the Air India headquarters and Air India Training Academy in Gurugram, Chandrasekaran urged them to stay on course, terming the accident the most "heartbreaking" crisis of his career.
The government on Thursday reappointed former IPS officer Ajit Doval as the National Security Adviser (NSA), according to an official order.
More than 300 flights have been cancelled and at least 25 airports, including Srinagar, have been temporarily shut for operations amid restrictions in the wake of the armed forces launching missile attacks on terror targets in Pakistan on Wednesday morning.
Air India has finalised an order for around 250 aircraft with Airbus and the deal is expected to be announced next week, a source said on Thursday. The source in the know also said the airline has signed a deal with Boeing for about 200 planes. Specific details could not be immediately ascertained and there was no immediate comments from Air India about the deals.
A Malaysia Airlines aircraft carrying more than 300 passengers made an emergency landing at Melbourne airport on Friday after a reported engine fire.
The sources in the know said around 7 flights each of IndiGo, Vistara and SpiceJet got the threats while 6 flights of Air India received the threats.
The Boeing 737 took off from Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa at 8.38 am.
Indicating its intentions to fly abroad very soon, proposed airline AirAsia India on Wednesday trashed the "bizarre" policy of allowing carriers to operate international flights only after five years of domestic operations.
The Yeti Airlines aircraft took off from Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport at 10.33 am on Sunday and crashed on the bank of the Seti River between the old airport and the new airport in Pokhara, minutes before landing, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.
The acoustic pingers on the missing Malaysia Airlines plane's two black boxes were due for overhauls and battery replacements in 2012 but were never returned to their manufacturer, according to a media report.
To enable Indian banks and financial institutions to develop an aircraft-leasing ecosystem at GIFT City, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has sought support from the Ministry of Finance. It has also raised concern over slow progress in developing aircraft leasing in India.
India is the third-largest domestic airline market in the world, up from number five position a decade ago, according to analysis based on OAG data. The data shows India's domestic airline capacity doubling in a decade from 7.9 million in April 2014 to 15.5 million in April 2024. In reaching the third slot, India has replaced Brazil (pushed to fourth place with 9.7 million) and Indonesia (relegated to fifth in the rankings with 9.2 million).
India's last three major commercial aviation accidents --Patna (2000), Mangaluru (2010), and Kozhikode (2020) -- could offer critical safety lessons for the ongoing investigation.
We celebrate the pioneering achievements of Captain Durba Banerjee and Avani Chaturvedi, leaders in Indian aviation.
The aircraft, which departed from New Delhi, was in Pakistani airspace when a male passenger fell seriously ill, according to sources from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
'Who tried engine relight?' 'If the first officer was the one flying at takeoff, the captain may have taken control immediately post-thrust loss.' 'But the AAIB report doesn't clarify any of this.'
Indian airline Go First is considering legal action against Pratt and Whitney (PW) for failing to provide compensation after March 2020 for planes grounded due to engine supply delays, sources said on Thursday. About 90 per cent of the airline's fleet of aircraft uses PW engines. About 24 of the airline's 55 planes are grounded due to delays in engine supply by PW.
Now it is confirmed that all 22 people, including four Indian nationals and three crew members, have been killed in the tragedy.
The search for the missing Malaysian aircraft may take "decades" as its wreckage could be spread over a big area in the Indian Ocean, a top Malaysia Airlines official said, while criticising the government for not informing them about the air turn back made by the jet.
A Central mBureau of Investigation team has questioned Abdul Rauf for about four hours in Chile in connection with the hijacking of Indian Airlines plane (IC-814) in 1999 but doubts persisted over his identity as the main conspirator.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Tuesday said the Indian government will be contacting the government of Bangladesh to seek the extradition of suspected Kandahar hijack accused and top Jaish-e Mohammed militant Nannu Mia alias Belal Mandol.
The claims will include three kinds of liabilities: Damage to the aircraft; loss of lives who were aboard the aircraft; including the crew members; and third-party liability because of loss of lives where the aircraft crashed; and cargo liability.
Tata group-owned Air India plans to hire expat pilots for its Boeing 777 planes as the airline is facing a shortage of pilots amid plans to expand its fleet as well as international operations, according to sources. The carrier is looking to rope in around 100 pilots for the wide-body Boeing 777 fleet and has approached various agencies that provide expat flight crew to airlines, the sources told PTI. The loss-making Air India, which was under government ownership for nearly seven decades till the Tata group took over in January 2022, had stopped hiring expat pilots many years ago to save costs.
The key planner Rauf used to be a part of JeM.
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.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has conclusively established that the person detained in Chile is not the man it was looking for in connection with the conspiracy in the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane in 1999 and that he was just a visa offender.
He said most of the passengers on the chartered plane that returned from France were from districts of Banaskantha, Patan, Mehsana and Anand.
Pakistan on Thursday refused to comment on reports that the Chilean police had arrested the brother of Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar, who was accused of coordinating the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane.
The Indian embassy in France has reached and obtained consular access.
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.
Nearly 80 domestic and international flights received bomb threats in less than 24 hours that later turned out to be hoaxes, keeping thousands of passengers and security agencies on tenterhooks.
A decade after the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane, the chief Indian negotiator who engaged the hijackers blamed the then government for its 'diplomatic failure' in their inability to make the United States and the United Arab Emirates use their influence to help secure a quick release of the passengers.
"The 'red bag' belonged to one of the hijackers, it contained explosives, and possibly, real passports, too.
In the message posted by Tata Group on X, he also said the group will cover the medical expenses of those injured and ensure that they receive all necessary care and support.
