Wadia Group-owned Go First Airways' (Go First) insolvency plea could trigger a 'momentum rally' in shares of rival airlines, Interglobe Aviation (parent company of IndiGo) and SpiceJet, as they look to gain bankrupt airline's market share, said analysts. On the bourses, shares of InterGlobe Aviation hit a 52-week high of Rs 2,235.95, surging 8 per cent on the BSE in Wednesday's intra-day trade, before settling 4.5 per cent higher at Rs 2,164 apiece. Those of SpiceJet and Jet Airways, meanwhile, rallied up to 6 per cent in the intra-day trade, and ended 1 per cent and 5 per cent higher, respectively, following the development, which was announced post market hours on Tuesday.
Civil Aviation Secretary Vumlunmang Vualnam on Thursday said the number of planes with domestic airlines will increase to 1,400 in the next five years as he highlighted the growth potential of the country's aviation space. Currently, the fleet is around 800 aircraft and leading carriers IndiGo and Air India have placed significant plane orders.
The coming years will be among the most exciting of your professional lives, IndiGo's new chief executive officer (CEO) Pieter Elbers wrote to the airline's staff after taking charge on Tuesday. Elbers, who spent three decades at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, replaces Ronojoy Dutta at the top post. "Earlier, IndiGo communication summarised it all in just three words: 'Towards new heights' and-let me add here: 'across new frontiers'. "With that vision in mind, you should feel assured that the coming years will be among the most exciting of your professional lives," Elbers said.
A passenger on board an IndiGo flight to Mumbai from Nagpur allegedly attempted to remove the cover of the emergency exit when the aircraft was approaching for landing in Mumbai, the airline said.
Just over a three-hour flight from Delhi, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Georgia have seen a big jump in visitors.
The DGCA has ordered an inquiry after a passenger, who was supposed to take an Indigo flight to Patna, boarded another flight of the airline and landed at Udaipur.
The trails of mega-mergers, tailwinds of expanding fleets, flights and airports will dot the fast-growing Indian aviation firmament in 2025, though the dark clouds of supply chain woes will persist longer. Also, new airline takeoffs, the future trajectory of revised norms to tackle pilot fatigue and efforts to reduce carbon emissions will be on the radar.
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.
IndiGo has restored annual increments for more than 4,500 pilots as a financial turnaround helped the airline make a profit in Q3 FY23 after three quarters of loss. An email from the airline's management last week informed pilots of the restoration from April. "The component of annual increment for Indian captains (Rs 10,000 per month) and Indian first officers (Rs 5,000 per month) on the Airbus and ATR fleet which was stopped due to Covid will restart from April 1, 2023," the airline's senior vice president (flight operations) Ashim Mitra said in the staff email.
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.
Responding to that, Rama Rao suggested the airlines recruit more staff who can speak the local language like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada on regional routes.
Some aircraft technicians at IndiGo are on sick leave since Friday demanding a revision in salaries. The protest comes days after the airline partially restored salaries of its pilots and cabin crew and made changes to its human resource (HR) policies. Some technicians in Hyderabad reported sick on Friday night while those from other bases skipped work on Sunday demanding a revision in salary, an industry source said.
A 35-year-old man who was allegedly behind a series of hoax bomb threats to airports and railway stations across the country has been arrested after he presented himself before Nagpur Police, an official said on Friday.
The flight was operating from Delhi to Doha in Qatar and was diverted to Karachi in Pakistan.
'My one recommendation would be to first quell the violence and then encourage dialogue and build the trust among the different communities.' 'This is not easy but necessary, for violence cannot be the way forward.'
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).
The incident took place on Thursday when the aircraft was taxing out for take off with 98 passengers on board and the flight was cancelled, it said.
The minister's remarks come against the backdrop of Surya, the ruling BJP's Bengaluru South MP, facing flak from Congress over the incident, which happened on December 10 last year at Chennai airport.
IndiGo barred a specially-abled child from boarding a flight as he was in "a state of panic"
IndiGo's Sharjah-Hyderabad flight was diverted to Karachi as a precaution on Sunday after pilots observed defect in one of the engines, officials of aviation regulator DGCA said.
IndiGo's management is of the opinion that Saturday's flight delays caused by sick leaves taken by many in the cabin crew are just an aberration. The airline's on-time performance nosedived to 45 per cent on Saturday as a large part of the cabin crew reported sick to participate in Air India's recruitment process. Privately, Air India executives denied holding interviews on Saturday and the airline did not issue any statement.
As SpiceJet faces heat from the aviation regulator DGCA for multiple flight incidents in the last few weeks, malfunction cases involving planes of IndiGo and Vistara came to light on Wednesday.
The DGCA has derostered the Air Traffic Controller (ATC) who was on duty at the time of the incident on Saturday, while IndiGo has initiated a probe into the matter
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.
Police in Maharashtra's Nagpur have identified a 35-year-old man from Gondia in the state as the person behind a spate of hoax bomb threats that triggered panic, caused flight delays and led to increased security at airports and other establishments, an official said.
Opposition Congress targeted Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya, amid reports that the passenger, who accidentally opened the emergency exit of the plane was the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha chief.
In 14 days, more than 350 flights operated by the Indian carriers have received hoax bomb threats. Most of the threats were issued through social media.
'A passenger was deplaned by the police at the Delhi airport from Raipur-bound flight 6E 204. Some other passengers have also decided to deboard on their own accord,' it added.
Cyclone Fengal expected to make landfall near Puducherry.
The threats via microblogging platform X came a day after three international flights originating from Mumbai received bomb threats, causing trouble to hundreds of passengers and airline crew.
Aviation regulator DGCA has allowed IndiGo to wet lease wide-body Boeing planes from Turkish Airlines for up to six months and has rejected the domestic carrier's request for leasing the aircraft for up to two years, according to sources. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) turned down the request of the country's largest airline to wet lease the aircraft for a longer period, citing that the move could become diversion of traffic rights in collusion with a strong foreign carrier that will mainly feed the latter's hub abroad with more passengers from India, the sources said. IndiGo, which currently has only narrow-body planes in its fleet, decided to lease wide-body aircraft to operate more flights on international routes to meet rising demand.
A video clip of the heated exchange onboard the flight on December 16 was shared on social media on Wednesday.
The airline demanded more than a thousand rupees for him to carry 41 inch hockey stick
Nivetha Thomas's style choices are chic, easy-to-wear and she absolutely loves desi attire.
Airline systems across airports, which were impacted due to a global IT outage on Friday, have started working normally, and all issues are likely to be resolved by noon on Saturday, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said. The ministry is constantly monitoring the operations at airports and airlines to ensure travel readjustments and refunds are taken care of, he added.
The number of domestic air travelers in India grew 2.42 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in April, reaching 13.2 million, according to data by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Tuesday.
'We don't give any guidance about profitability. We have internal targets but we don't discuss them publicly.'
Passenger traffic to Lakshadweep more than doubled from April to June this year.
The flight, which was scheduled to depart at 8.20 pm, had to be grounded following the hoax threat, they said.
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.