He was grounded by the airline on Sunday after he tested positive for alcohol in two breath analyser (BA) tests before he was to operate Air India's New Delhi-London flight.
A number of countries like Canada, Turkey, Belgium, Italy and Israel have banned flights from the UK as the British government warned that the potent new strain of the virus was "out of control" and imposed a stringent new stay-at-home lockdown from Sunday.
Limits imposed on domestic airfares will be removed from August 31, after a span of approximately 27 months, the Union aviation ministry said on Wednesday. "The decision to remove air fare caps has been taken after careful analysis of daily demand and prices of air turbine fuel (ATF). "Stabilisation has set in and we are certain that the sector is poised for growth in domestic traffic in the near future," Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Twitter.
The move comes after the government rejected its plan to operate 20 flights a week.
The civil aviation ministry on Friday said the aircraft carrying President Pratibha Patil never lost contact with the air traffic control while flying to Aizawl and was put on an alternate radio frequency immediately after an Air Traffic Control monitor suffered technical glitch.
Patel is being questioned in connection with a money laundering probe related to losses suffered by Air India as part of an alleged multi-crore aviation scam.
The aviation regulator DGCA had on May 21 issued seven bands of ticket pricing with lower and upper fare limits.
A negative Covid report is a must for passengers transiting through China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand, irrespective of their originating countries, before landing at any Indian airport, the Union health ministry said on Monday.
The ministry of civil aviation will seek a complete rollback of service tax levied on domestic air travel in the recent Budget, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said on Wednesday.In his Budget speech on February 26, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had proposed a service tax of 10 per cent on both domestic and international travel. Earlier, the service tax was restricted only for international travel.
With high festive season demand pushing up airfares, aviation regulator DGCA has been asked by the Union civil aviation ministry to examine if it could take some steps provide any relief to air travellers.
Air India to shift, unused capacity in existing bilaterals may be mobilised.
In a bid to support revival of sectors hit most by the Covid-19 pandemic, Reserve Bank of India on Friday decided to open a separate liquidity window of Rs 15,000 crore for certain contact-intensive sectors like hotels and restaurants, tourism and aviation ancillary services.
SpiceJet has decreased its domestic services by 31 per cent to 2,995 weekly flights in the upcoming winter schedule as compared to 4,316 weekly flights that it got approved for the winter schedule of 2019, the aviation regulator DGCA said on Thursday. Meanwhile, Vistara, another private carrier, has increased its domestic services by 22 per cent to 1,675 weekly flights as compared to 1,376 weekly flights for 2019 winter schedule, the regulator added. The winter schedule begins on October 31 of a year and ends on March 26 next year.
It would provide ways to cross-subsidise these operations when airlines will fly to such destinations.
Air India pilot unions IPG and ICPA on Monday sought Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri's intervention on the wage cut issue and also requested for an "urgent" meeting with him on several other issues. "In our meetings in September, you had given us an assurance to look into our grievances positively. "While other airlines are rolling back the austerity pay cuts for their pilots, the wage cut for Air India pilots further increased from October.
Earlier, in August, the finance ministry had asked banks to put pressure on real estate developers to cut prices.
This was decided after Bangalore International Airport Ltd, the private consortium developing the greenfield airport, rejected the civil aviation ministry's proposal of keeping both the airports operational. The Karnataka high court had recently advised the government to reconsider the concession agreement with the private developers, which says that the existing airport in Bangalore should be shut down after the new one starts functioning.
A panel headed by Economic Affairs secretary Arvind Mayaram had suggested FDI limit be raised to 49 per cent in almost all sectors through the automatic route.
Proceeds may be used to partly pay off its Rs 46,570-cr debt
That it has been threatening to review this rule for a while is old hat anyway.
In the aviation sector, 100 per cent FDI is allowed under automatic route for MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul), ground handling, and aircraft purchase.
However, the tender criteria demands that an entity must be eligible to conduct Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations in order to become eligible. Currently, no drone companies are eligible to do BVLOS operations, reports Arindam Majumder.
It is possible to be blind to this and pretend to carry on as if nothing has happened but that will not change the reality, asserts Aakar Patel.
The ministry of home affairs has received more than 20 proposals for foreign direct investment (FDI), including from China and Hong Kong, requiring security clearance between April and May. 'We are vetting some of these proposals which have come from various sectors. One of the applications is from a well known start-up,' an official said. 'We await inputs from Research and Analysis Wing, intelligence agencies, external affairs ministry, and embassies.'
'The lay of the runway is not at all safe.' 'Even operating a 737 is dangerous there.' 'During the monsoon, they must ban landing on runway 10.'
No domestic commercial passenger flight would be allowed to operate in the country from March 25 onwards in order to restrict travel amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Union civil aviation ministry said in a statement on Monday.
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.
The government also said it will hold consultations with the airlines to explore the possibility of curbing the menace of charging exorbitant airfares during emergency situations.
Built in 1974, the building could fetch anywhere between Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 1,500 crore, based on current real estate prices
The civil aviation ministry has asked airlines not to charge excessive fares from passengers in the wake of agitation by pilots of Jet Airways.Media reports said that following strike by Jet pilots, other airlines were charging an average of Rs 9,000-10,000 for Mumbai-Delhi route, while some are even charging up to Rs 15,000 per seat.
The Civil Aviation Ministry on Thursday night set up a four-member committee to probe the cause of Andhra Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's helicopter crash in which he was killed.
'The actual amount due to Jet Airways employees is Rs 1,200 crore, and the management is giving only Rs 52 crore.'
This is the third instance in the last three days when the aviation regulator grounded a plane after an incident.
Airlines to nearly double bilateral utilisation to 40% from April
This carbon credit system is expected to generate greater financial viability for regional operators.
Prevent highly intoxicated travellers from boarding the aircraft, limit alcohol intake, instal CCTV cameras and sensitise staff about sexual harassment -- are part of the detailed guidelines given by the Delhi Commission for Women to the aviation regulator amid rising incidents of unruly passengers on flights.
The directorate general of civil aviation has shot off a letter to all airlines seeking details of the sudden and steep fare hikes announced on Wednesday. The move came close on the heels of civil aviation minister Praful Patel's remark that the ministry was against cartelisation, widely believed to be behind the latest fare hikes.
When the domestic passenger flights resumed on May 25, the ministry had stated that only one check-in baggage and one hand baggage per passenger must be allowed.
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