The Foreign Investment Promotion Board on March 6 cleared the Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia's bid to launch an airline in India by joining hands with Tata Sons.
Indian Airlines whipped Bangladesh XI while Air-India prevailed over CISF in the semi-finals of the Shastri hockey tournament.\n\n
Tatas and Singapore Airlines have assured the government that control of their proposed airline venture would always remain in Indian hands, while seeking approval to offer passenger services on both domestic and international routes.
Each airline operating out of Delhi is expected to get separate terminal space and a third full-fledged runway is to be constructed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport when the first phase of its modernisation is completed by 2008.
Else customers will face capacity shortages and high fares.
The airline industry globally is expected to bounce back to its pre-recession traffic levels in two or three months, International Air Transport Association (IATA) has announced.
Tata Group-owned Air India has placed an order for 840 planes with Airbus and Boeing, including the option to acquire 370 aircraft, with a senior airline official on Thursday saying the order is a "landmark moment" in the Indian aviation history. The announcement by Air India's Chief Commercial and Transformation Officer Nipun Aggarwal comes a day after the airline said it has placed a firm order for 470 aircraft -- 250 from Airbus and 220 from Boeing. In a LinkedIn post, Aggarwal said the airline is humbled by the excitement generated across the world by the airline's aircraft order.
Apart from Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, the codeshare agreement with Lufthansa will cover Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Goa, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kochi and Pune.
A cabin crew member of the flight had filed a complaint with the DGCA about the pilot allowing a female friend into the cockpit.
The announcement came as Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' called an emergency meeting of the council of ministers following the crash.
An India-bound Malaysia Airlines flight was on Sunday forced to turn back due to an auto-pilot defect, landing safely here, said the loss-making carrier already hit by the twin tragedies this year.
Malaysia's budget airline AirAsia, which is eyeing more routes to India, China and Singapore, has said the country's aviation sector must be open to competition to ensure passenger growth. \n
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.
The airlines worldwide may collectively lose a whopping $9 billion in 2009, a key aviation body said in its forecast, nearly doubling its March estimate of $4.7 billion loss, spelling a rapidly deteriorating revenue environment for the industry.
Low-cost carrier IndiGo has asked American aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney (PW) to quickly provide engines for the airline to press its grounded planes back into service, sources said on Wednesday. The airline wants to increase its domestic frequency to fill the supply-side void created after Go First's exit, they added. Go First stopped operating flights from May 3 after filing an insolvency application with the National Company Law Tribunal.
Beginning May 1, the airline will do away with free blankets and would charge $8 for a set of blanket and pillow.
IndiGo has about 400 planes on order.
Air India had conducted its first IATA operational safety audit audit in 2004.
The check-in process at Mumbai international airport's T2 has been hit, with all systems going down. This has resulted in huge queues at all counters, affecting check-ins and passage drops.
British Airways, Lufthansa, Etihad and Singapore Airlines are scouting for an Indian partner that meets the net worth criterion
The country's new scheduled airline Akasa Air is "well capitalised" and will allow carrying of domesticated dogs and cats onboard along with passengers from November, according to its senior executives. The airline, which began operations on August 7, also plans to launch international operations in the second half of next year. Akasa Air CEO Vinay Dube said the airline is well capitalised and is not looking to have new investors.
Full service carrier Vistara will hike salaries of its pilots and cabin crew by up to 8 per cent from April amid deployment of higher capacities to meet rising travel demand, according to a source. The source also claimed that some 30 pilots have quit the airline in the last six months and are serving notice period after getting job offers mainly from the Gulf carriers. On Thursday, a senior Vistara official confirmed the salary hike for the pilots and cabin crew but denied that 30 pilots have left the airline.
Let Air India - that anyway flies very limited international routes, often bleeding profusely and makes huge losses on trunk routes - do this national service, says Anjuli Bhargava.
Babus may now use private telecom, airline services
Quoting global financial indexes, IATA said global airlines, including those from Asia, showed an upward trend since late September with European airlines' shares experiencing the strongest rise, up 55 per cent.
Wadia group-owned Go First will temporarily suspend flights on May 3 and 4 amid severe fund crunch, the airline's chief Kaushik Khona said on Tuesday.
Strong crosswinds and heavy rains with thunder and lightning impacted flight operations from 4.05 pm to 4.51 pm, an airport official said.
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.
It is bonanza time for international travellers yet again, with foreign carriers like Singapore Airlines, British Airways and Cathay Pacific cutting fares almost 50 per cent.
An airline official said the ban is with immediate effect and is in addition to the 30-day ban it had imposed on the individual earlier.
India's domestic air passenger traffic nearly doubled to 1.25 crore in January compared to 64.08 lakh recorded in the year-ago period, according to official data released on Monday. In January, IndiGo saw its domestic market share decline for the fifth consecutive month at 54.6 per cent. It carried 68.47 lakh passengers last month.
The large scale diversion on the night of January 5-6 was mainly because of these aircraft being operated by pilots not trained on Category-III Instrument Landing System, DGCA sources said.
Scholarships, sports and spirit define Phee Teik Yeoh, the new CEO of Vistara in India
Though prices of airline tickets have risen over the previous two quarters, this hasn't dampened customers' spirits.
Dubai officially launched passenger services at its new Al Maktoum International airport on Sunday after a delay of nearly four years, with three airlines agreeing to operate from the facility for now.
Kingfisher Airlines on Tuesday said it had entered into a tie-up with electronic global distribution services provider Galileo International for providing access to the latter's travel agent network.
"The airlines failed to respond to the falling market. While there was a cut-down in capacity by around 25 per cent in September, the airlines brought back the flights starting from January and replenished capacity in all sectors. So we have a clear case of oversupply," said DP Singh, general manager, corporate planning, AAI.
