The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for leasing out airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram through public-private partnership (PPP).
Air India will no longer enjoy a priority in allocation of international traffic rights. This follows its takeover by Tata Sons in January. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has dropped a clause which gave Air India an advantage over other private airlines in the amended rules issued on April 19.
The move would come as a relief to air passengers.
Aviation minister said if the scheduled domestic flights reach pre-COVID levels by the end of the year, he will have no hesitation in removing the fare limits at that time.
The routes, for which ticket pricing information has been sought, include those connecting Jammu and Kashmir, Leh and Port Blair.
The Tehelka magazine on Friday claimed some officials, bureaucrats and other VIPs had 'abused' their status to get free tickets and other facilities from a private airline in gross violation of service rules and propriety.
The move comes after the civil aviation ministry decided to allow Indian carriers to charge passengers for add-on services like their foreign counterparts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Air India to shift, unused capacity in existing bilaterals may be mobilised.
The passengers included 10 foreigners, according to the state-run Nepal Television.
It would provide ways to cross-subsidise these operations when airlines will fly to such destinations.
The move comes after the government rejected its plan to operate 20 flights a week.
Earlier, in August, the finance ministry had asked banks to put pressure on real estate developers to cut prices.
The aviation regulator DGCA had on May 21 issued seven bands of ticket pricing with lower and upper fare limits.
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.
This is the third incident of technical malfunction on a Go First aircraft in two days.
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.
That it has been threatening to review this rule for a while is old hat anyway.
Proceeds may be used to partly pay off its Rs 46,570-cr debt
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the aviation sector, 100 per cent FDI is allowed under automatic route for MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul), ground handling, and aircraft purchase.
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.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
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 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 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.'
Airlines to nearly double bilateral utilisation to 40% from April
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 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.'
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