An alternate aircraft of Indian budget carrier SpiceJet flew to Dubai from Karachi's Jinnah International Airport on Tuesday night, ending a wait of nearly 11 hours for 138 passengers who got stranded there after taking off from New Delhi in the morning.
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
Crisis-hit SpiceJet plans to hand out pink slips to at least 1,000 employees in the coming days as the airline works to significantly reduce costs and streamline operations of its depleted aircraft fleet, officials said on Monday. Faced with financial woes, legal battles and other headwinds, the no-frills carrier might ask more staff to leave as there is excess manpower now compared to the number of planes in service. A final decision on the quantum of layoffs is expected this week, one of the officials in the know said.
In further easing of restrictions, the government on Wednesday permitted Indian airlines to increase the number of domestic passenger flights to 60 per cent of their pre-Covid services, according to an official order.
So far, carcasses of 32 flamingos have been recovered from Ghatkopar area, the police said.
The pilot-turned-airline owner and his partner Biraja Jena plan to launch FlyBig, which has secured 16 routes under the fourth phase of UDAN, the government's regional connectivity programme.
Chadha also said there is a possibility that fog in Delhi and a recent air show in Mumbai may have added to the troubles of the airline.
Among the impacted flights, Air India's flight AI 185 from the national capital to Vancouver that was to depart early in the morning was rescheduled.
Nepal's Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Monday inaugurated the country's second international airport built by China that will help connect Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha and a major tourist and pilgrimage destination, to Buddhist circuits in South Asia as well as to the rest of the world.
As two more bodies were recovered from the accident site on Tuesday, the total number of confirmed dead has climbed to 71, Nepal Army spokesperson Narayan Siwal said.
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).
However, if a flyer has been allotted the middle seat due to a high passenger load, 'then additional protective equipment like wrap-around gown of the Ministry of Textile approved standards' must be provided to him or her in addition to a three-layered face mask and face shield, a DGCA order, accessed by PTI, said.
Air India significantly altered the composition of the aircraft order it placed earlier this year with Airbus, the European plane manufacturer has said. In February, Air India had placed the world's second-largest single-tranche aircraft order for 470 planes: 250 with Airbus and 220 with Boeing. In July, Airbus disclosed an order comprising 70 A321neo, 140 A320neo, 34 A350-1000, and six A350-900 aircraft for Air India.
'I think some of us, like Mukesh Ambani, myself and those of us who head industrial units, ought to really focus on what we can really do to make the world a safer place, maybe 50 or 100 years from now.' 'For instance, how can we deal with climate change and global warming, right now?' 'The effects of it may not be felt now; in fact, we may pay a price for it today, but it will help the generations to follow.'
While IndiGo had 11.8 per cent of all the international seats to and fro India in the last week of August, Air India's seat share was 11.4 per cent. Emirates came third with 8.1 per cent, and rest of the airlines constituted 68 per cent of the seat share.
But special international flights have been operating under the Vande Bharat Mission since May and under the bilateral 'air bubble' arrangements with selected countries since July.
'Of course, it's wrong to hit the pilot 100 per cent, I will not agree with that. But why was he blaming passengers in this'
On July 25 and 26, the regulator's team carried out the surveillance of Air India in the areas of internal audit, accident prevention work and availability of required technical manpower.
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.
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.
'This kind of a last minute order creates immense problems for airlines.'
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, in-flight meal service was not permitted on domestic flights since their resumption on May 25. On international flights, only pre-packed cold meals and snacks were being served depending on the flight duration since May this year.
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.
Bag scanning of international passengers is done routinely and the "privileges are not above law", the Delhi customs said on Monday after a video by a Kashmiri journalist over her bag checking at the airport in New Delhi went viral.
Air India on Friday said it has completed the acquisition of its first A350-900 aircraft by way of a finance lease transaction with HSBC through the GIFT City. This is also the first wide body aircraft to be leased through the GIFT City, the country's first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). In a release, the airline said the transaction was facilitated by its wholly-owned subsidiary AI Fleet Services Ltd (AIFS) and is also the first financing transaction from the orders for 470 aircraft that were made earlier this year.
Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran on Thursday said the best of artificial intelligence and machine learning will be deployed at Air India and emphasised that the airline is not just another business for the group but a passion and a national mission. As Tata Group steers the transformation of loss-making Air India since taking control in January last year, Chandrasekaran said that he most of the time receives "caring criticism" about the airline that also further strengthens the commitment. Speaking at an event in the national capital where Air India's new brand identity and aircraft livery were unveiled, he said the focus is on upgrading all human resources aspects in the airline.
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.
Airfares in the country are set to rise, with IndiGo on Thursday introducing a fuel charge of up to Rs 1,000 based on a flight's distance, in response to the significant rise in aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices in the last three months. The Indian aviation sector experiences its peak travel season between October and December. The inclusion of a fuel charge component in airfares is anticipated to have a sizable impact on IndiGo's passengers, according to experts.
Currently, Vistara has more than 22 planes and operates around 850 flights every week.
Captain Sharan and Flight Engineer Anil Jaggia both confirm that the hijackers seemed to know a lot about flying an aircraft. Without help from the ISI or the Pakistan army, it was impossible, points out Utkarsh Mishra.
Akasa Air has reduced its service on 10 routes and stopped operating flights on eight others since the exodus of pilots began in early July. The airline's flights per week reduced from 945 in June to 754 in October, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium's data, which has been reviewed by Business Standard. The airline currently operates flights on 34 routes. Between June and October, Akasa Air ceased operations on the following: Ahmedabad-Kochi, Ahmedabad-Hyderabad, Ahmedabad-Pune, Bengaluru-Hyderabad, Bengaluru-Chennai, Kochi-Hyderabad, Goa-Lucknow, and Goa-Hyderabad.
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.
Travel bubbles, also called travel bridges or green corridors, do away with the waiting period for travellers from certain countries. They are reciprocal in nature, meaning flyers from both countries will enjoy similar benefits.
Some years ago, Rakesh Gangwal reportedly said his relationship with Rahul Bhatia evolved in an amazing friendship, which he termed 'blind trust'. The question is whether that is under scrutiny now.
Nepalese rescuers resumed their search on Monday for four persons still missing after a passenger plane with 72 people, including five Indians, crashed into a river gorge while landing at the newly-opened airport in the resort city of Pokhara, killing at least 68 people onboard.
As Prabhakaran was leaving his house, Rajiv Gandhi called his son Rahul and asked him to fetch his (Gandhi's) bulletproof jacket. He put the jacket on Prabhakaran's back and remarked with his usual charming smile: "Take care of yourself."
Its association with India is over 70 years old and spans both civil and military aviation. The Douglas DC-3 transport aircraft used by the air force beginning the 1940s and the iconic Boeing 747 aircraft flown by Air India, both had Pratt & Whitney (P&W) engines. The Indian Air Force's present-day, heavy-lift C-17 Globemaster III and the yet-to-be-inducted C-295 planes, too, have P&W power plants.
In a major relief for pilots in dealing with fatigue, aviation watchdog DGCA on Monday came out with revised norms that increase their weekly rest time to 48 hours and limit the number of landings to two during night operations. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has also extended the night hours for pilots and now, it covers the period from 0000-0600 hours whereas it was 0000-0500 hours earlier. Besides, all airlines have to compulsorily submit quarterly fatigue reports, which "should follow a follow a non-punitive and confidentiality policy".
Chief executive officers (CEOs) across sectors have expressed intentions to expand capacities, expecting the government's target to invest a record Rs 11.11 trillion on infrastructure development will act as a catalyst for a jump in consumer demand. "With the government planning a capex of Rs 11.11 trillion, private sector investment will come in a big way. Companies will be preparing for it right from today," H M Bangur, chairman of Shree Cement, told Business Standard. For the past few years, the investment scene in India has been dominated by government capital expenditures; private investments in the manufacturing sector have remained muted.
An average Indian couple spends around 2x on weddings versus education (pre-primary to graduation).
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