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 new greenfield airport at Navi Mumbai will come up at the proposed site and not be shifted elsewhere. Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has also written to the Civil Aviation Ministry for building the airport at the originally proposed site. There had been demands to shift the proposed Navi Mumbai airport to a new site due to environmental issues. The regulator would look into aspects like aeronautical charges, user development fee and passenger fee.
Incumbent airlines oppose the proposal.
Airline stocks have been soaring following a steep decline in crude oil prices and sustained passenger traffic. Analysts have particularly turned bullish on the stocks of InterGlobe Aviation and SpiceJet. On December 20, shares of InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo) hit a record high of Rs 3,009 on the BSE, having surged 43.24 per cent year-to-date (YTD).
India is the 9th largest civil aviation market in the world and is expected to reach third position with a fleet size of 1,000 by 2020.
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.
The ministry of civil aviation has recommended three levels of unruly behaviour by passengers, each with a different duration of ban on flying.
A source in the know said realistically two-three of the seven bullet train corridors could be included as a practical election promise.
India and the US on Thursday said they are looking forward to the reconvening of the India-US Trade Policy Forum later this year to further enhance trade relationship and identify new areas for engagement.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation is planning to start flights connecting about 120 cities in the country from the current 81 cities, said Praful Patel, Union Minister for Civil Aviation.
The direction comes hours after Iran fired over a dozen ballistic missiles targeting at least two American bases in response to the killing of its General Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike.
An unprecedented decision to form a ministerial-level committee was driven by fears of witch-hunt by investigating agencies.
India has established individual bilateral bubbles with France and the US that will allow airlines of each country in the pact to operate international flights, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Thursday, adding that similar arrangement with Germany and the UK will soon be permitted.
Jet-Sahara deal: HC asks govt for documents
Jet Airways on Thursday said it would introduce more flights on both its domestic and international networks.
Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday said it has issued a show cause notice to Air India regarding two incidents of passenger misbehaviour onboard a flight from Paris to New Delhi last month.
Following the incident at little past 1700 hours, both runways at the airport were shut for a brief period, and one of the runways resumed operations at around 1847 hours, the officials said.
The airline said it has filed a police complaint about the incident, but did not specify when the 30-day ban came into effect.
SpiceJet announced it has started a five-day "1+1 offer sale" where it was offering one-way base fares starting as low as Rs 899, excluding taxes, on its domestic network.
Slots, parking bays unavailable at major airports
The airline has suspended its international operations till Monday.
ersonnel in a revamp that aims to provide cost-effective, reliable, and professionally competent security service at airports. Aneesh Phadnis reports.
The commercial launch of the new Bangalore international airport is likely to be deferred by two to three weeks from the scheduled date of March 28 in view of the delay in completing the air traffic control (ATC) facility, the nerve centre of the airport.DGCA had expressed concern over several safety provisions, including the incomplete ATC facility at the airport. Flights will continue to operate from the existing HAL airport.
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 aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had last week imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on the airline for denying boarding to a specially abled child at Ranchi airport on May 7.
They say better late than never. For the Tatas, the original owners of Air India, bringing back the airline to its fold is worth the wait even if the attempt to privatise the bleeding national carrier by successive governments has taken over two decades. While many airlines have come and gone from the Indian skies since the time when the first move was made to privatise Air India to date, the salt-to-software conglomerate has never let the love affair with aviation, more so with Air India that its former chairman Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (JRD) had, to go off the radar. It is said that Tata group executives used to complain in private that JRD -- the pioneer of the Indian aviation industry -- spent more time worrying about Air India than the Tata group when he was heading both the entities.
The Nepal government signed a $215.96 million soft loan agreement with China in March 2016 for the construction of the airport in this tourist hub.
Civil Aviation Ministry has a few ready answers at hand.
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.
The aviation regulator DGCA had on May 21 issued seven bands of ticket pricing with lower and upper fare limits.
Air India's handling of an incident in which an inebriated male flier allegedly urinated on a woman co-passenger suggests an urgent need for stricter rules to deal with unruly passengers, according to legal and aviation experts.
An Air India plane that took off for Kyiv in Ukraine on Thursday morning to bring back Indians from the eastern European nation is returning to Delhi due to the closure of Ukrainian airspace amid the Russian military offensive.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited said on Monday it has successfully carried out the Ground Run and Low Speed Taxi Trials (LSTT) of the Hindustan-228 (VT-KNR) aircraft for DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) 'Type Certification'.
Seeking to further democratise air travel with dependable and affordable services, airline Akasa Air is aiming to start flights in late May or early June after getting its first Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in April. Bullish on the long term growth potential of the country's civil aviation sector, ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed carrier is looking to have 18 planes in its fleet by the end of March 2023. Despite COVID clouds continuing to cast a shadow on the airlines, Akasa Air CEO Vinay Dube is more than optimistic as he asserted that "if you look at the long term future of commercial aviation in India, it is as exciting as anywhere in the world".
Earlier this month, Air India issued show cause notices to the Pilot-in-Command and four crew members of the flight and derostered them pending investigation.
The ministry said that states can also develop their own protocol with regards to quarantine and isolation as per their assessment.
After having allowed private Indian airlines to fly to SAARC countries, the Union Cabinet is likely to take a decision to permit them to launch operations to other international destinations in a month's time, civil aviation minister Praful Patel sai