IndiGo will introduce business class seats in select flights on 12 domestic routes starting from November 14 and also launch a customer loyalty programme, as the 18-year-old airline seeks to expand business and strengthen global presence. The announcements, made at an event in the national capital on Monday to mark 18 years of operations, also highlights a pivotal trajectory for the airline.
Air India will be commencing its scheduled operations -- two daily flights from the national capital -- to Dhaka on Wednesday.
The Tatas have collectively increased their aggregate airlines seat capacity across domestic and international markets by an impressive 20 per cent, going from 64.03 million in calendar year (CY) 2023 to 76.72 million in the current CY, according to data shared by the group that controls Air India in which Vistara has been merged recently. The Tatas also run Air India Express in which Air Asia India has been merged.
Indian airports' push to become global hubs will depend on reducing passenger leakage to rival airports abroad, scaling up direct long-haul connectivity, and offering transfer experiences that are faster, smoother, and more attractive than those of regional competitors, said panellists at the Business Standard Infrastructure Summit on Thursday.
Passengers of an IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Doha waited inside the aircraft for more than four hours as the flight was delayed due to a technical issue on Sunday.
This is the second such incident involving an IndiGo flight in the past week. On May 28, an IndiGo Varanasi flight from Delhi had received an alleged bomb threat.
The civil aviation ministry reports six aircraft engine shutdown incidents and three May Day calls in India this year. The Air India plane crash investigation is ongoing, with all aspects being examined.
Mumbaikars woke up to very heavy rainfall on Monday, while the India meteorological department (IMD) issued a 'red' alert, forecasting extremely heavy rains at isolated places in the city and adjoining areas, prompting the civic body to declare a holiday for schools and colleges, officials said.
So far this week, more than 90 flights have received bomb threats and most of them have turned out to be hoaxes.
India has advised its citizens to defer travel to Nepal due to ongoing unrest and anti-government protests. The Ministry of External Affairs has also urged Indian citizens currently in Nepal to exercise caution and avoid public areas.
NMIAL is spending close to Rs 18,000 crore to get the airport up and running.
The Mumbai police have registered a case against an unidentified person after three airlines received bomb threats on their X handle, an official said on Tuesday.
'We were told that we would be taken care of when we reached Delhi. But we did not find a single Kashmiri government official who could guide us.'
'It doesn't matter where you come from or what college you studied in. None of it defines your future. Just don't give up.'
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.
IndiGo share price today: IndiGo share price fell as much as 4.8 per cent to a low of Rs 4,275 per share on the BSE in Monday's intraday trade as investors booked profit in the stock post a its April-June quarter (Q1) results for financial year 2024-25 (FY25). The stock ended 1.36 per cent lower at Rs 4,430 as against a 23-points gain in the benchmark BSE Sensex. The selling also got exacerbated as the management commentary, post Q1FY25 results, highlighted that inflationary pressure could likely dent July-September (Q2FY25) performance.
The officials said the passengers on board the aircraft were evacuated through emergency exits.
The Noida International Airport (NIA), being developed as a greenfield aviation hub in Jewar, Gautam Buddh Nagar, is on track to begin operations by the end of this year.
Long-term macro trends indicate growth in demand for air travel. Trends from the ticketing website MakeMyTrip indicate a likely annual growth of between 11-17 per cent in Indian air travel demand over FY24-30. Through that period, InterGlobe Aviation or IndiGo may continue to make gains in market share in both domestic and international travel, aided by large fleet additions. IndiGo is the largest global customer of Airbus by far with 950 aircraft orders outstanding.
'This festival season, advance airfares for major metros are up 20 to 25 per cent from last year.'
The DGCA has asked airlines to inspect the fuel switch locking system in their Boeing 787 and 737 planes after a preliminary probe report into the Air India crash found that the switches were cut off before the accident.
In a post on X in the morning, IndiGo said there was heavy downpour over Delhi, causing some temporary disruption to flight schedules.
An IndiGo aircraft grazed the wings of an Air India Express plane at the Kolkata airport on Wednesday, leaving the wings of both aircraft damaged, officials said.
The international cargo operations of two major carriers - IndiGo and Air India Group (Air India and Vistara) - are experiencing opposite trajectories despite both the airlines significantly expanding their international flight offerings over the past year. During the fourth quarter of 2023-24, IndiGo's international non-passenger cargo business declined to 6,848 tonnes. This is an 18.2 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) decrease, according to data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)
'A last-second aborted landing at Mumbai airport left us speechless.'
The country's largest airline IndiGo on Thursday reported more than doubling of its net profit to Rs 1,894.8 crore in the three months ended March 2024 and announced the introduction of business class in select routes this year. The strong performance in the latest March quarter, which also marks six consecutive quarters of profitability, was fuelled by higher traffic, increased capacity and a favourable external environment.
In little over a year, Air India and IndiGo have announced plans to purchase up to 170 wide-body planes as they bet on ambitious expansion and efforts also continue to make India a global aviation hub. Also, the two carriers' orders usher in European aircraft maker Airbus into the country's wide-body space, which has traditionally been dominated by US major Boeing. If narrow-body aircraft orders of Air India, IndiGo and Akasa Air are added to the list, the order book is well over 1,200 planes and that too in less than 14 months or since February 2023.
InterGlobe Aviation's promoter Rakesh Gangwal on Monday sold shares worth Rs 6,785 crore of the company through open market transactions. The co-founder of the company, which operates the country's largest airline IndiGo, offloaded 2.25 crore shares of IndiGo amounting to 5.83 per cent stake, according to bulk deal data on BSE.
Shares of low-cost airline IndiGo hit record high on the bourses soon after reports of pilot crisis at Vistara emerged. The development also saw airfares surge by around 25 per cent on select routes. Shares of IndiGo hit a lifetime high of ~3,68.5 on April 2, 2024, and has gained 2.4 per cent on the bourses in April.
The passenger He said that there were pregnant women and elderly people travelling on the plane, but despite it, "the Indigo team declined to help the passengers and asked them to make their own arrangements at a 3rd location".
The Boeing 787-8 aircraft -- VT-ANB -- was 11.5 years old and had flown for more than 41,000 hours, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
The sources said the aircraft was allotted a remote bay C-33 instead of a Contact Stand, an aircraft parking stand that is suitable for walking passengers to and from an aircraft from an allocated boarding gate. This further added to passenger woes and deprived them the opportunity to avail basic facilities like rest rooms and refreshments at the terminal, they added.
On Wednesday, Surat airport remained operational for an extra one hour waiting for the landing of an Air India Express flight that took off more than an hour late from the national capital.
Akasa Air's standalone net loss rose 18.7 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to roughly Rs 1,983 crore in 2024-25 (FY25), driven by rising employee costs, aircraft maintenance and airport charges, and a sharp increase in foreign exchange (forex) expenses, sources privy to the development told Business Standard.
However, both the flights were safely landed.
Many passengers rushed out of an IndiGo aircraft at the Mumbai airport, sat on the tarmac, and some were also seen having food there as soon as their diverted Goa-Delhi flight landed after a long delay on Sunday.
Executives from India's leading airlines are conducting internal meetings to devise alternative routes for their international flights that currently pass through Pakistani airspace.
Indian carriers are grappling with severe operational disruptions after Iran launched missile strikes on the US military base in Qatar late Monday. This led to airspace closures for long hours in parts of West Asia. Iran, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait shut down their skies following the attack, forcing airlines to cancel, divert, or delay flights through these vital corridors.
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.
On May 28, following the bomb threat, which later turned out to be hoax, all the passengers were evacuated through emergency slides from the aircraft at the Delhi airport.
