Govt to review decision after demand assessment.
Airline told to transfer non-core assets, subsidiaries to special purpose vehicle
The home ministry has asked the civil aviation ministry to go ahead with its plan to review the list of 33 categories of people, including the Dalai Lama and Vadra, who are currently exempted from frisking at airports in the country.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) intensified its campaign in Lebanon with targeted airstrikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut, hitting key weapons depots and terror infrastructure overnight, according to a report by Times of Israel.
The CBI has closed a case against former Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav and others over alleged corruption in the appointments of general managers after the central government refused to grant its sanction to prosecute him, officials said. The agency had booked Jadhav, then general manager L P Nakhwa (now retired), and then additional general managers A Kathpalia, Amitabh Singh and Rohit Bhasin after a year-long preliminary enquiry, they said. It was alleged that Jadhav had constituted illegal/irregular promotion panel to recommend suitable candidates for promotion to the post of general manager (operations), they said.
The Union Government will invest Rs 2000 crore (Rs 20 billion) for making Mumbai airport into a world class one, Union Civil Aviation Minister Syed Shahnawaz Hussain said in Mumbai. \n\n
The Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises wants to examine the grave financial problems of Air India, but neither the Civil Aviation Ministry nor the national carrier has responded to the BRPSE offer.
There will be only three ground handlers at each of the six metro airports in the country.
The civil aviation ministry had last week suspended all flights between the European country and India from December 23 to December 31 as a mutated variant of the coronavirus was detected there.
Aviation regulator DGCA on Saturday suspended the flying licence of beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines for failing to come up with a viable plan for its financial and operational revival and resolve the impasse withits employees over payment of their salary dues.
The move would come as a relief to air passengers.
Wide-body aircraft like B747 and A350 have a bigger fuel tank and can therefore travel longer distances in comparison to narrow-body aircraft like B737 and A320. A wide-body aircraft also needs a longer runway length to take off or land. The table top runway 10 of the Kozhikode airport is approximately 2,700 metres long. Wide-body aircraft operations were permitted at this airport from 2019.
Sources said the process has taken time because of a delay in leasing of aircraft. As per the original plan the aircraft were to be leased through GIFT City, Gujarat, but this is proving costlier than doing it offshore.
New airline Akasa Air on Thursday took delivery of the first 737 Max aircraft from Boeing in Seattle, USA, a statement said.
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.
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.
Air India to shift, unused capacity in existing bilaterals may be mobilised.
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.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for leasing out airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram through public-private partnership (PPP).
That it has been threatening to review this rule for a while is old hat anyway.
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.
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.
It would provide ways to cross-subsidise these operations when airlines will fly to such destinations.
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.
Earlier, in August, the finance ministry had asked banks to put pressure on real estate developers to cut prices.
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 incident was reported on January 30, and it came to light after the United States-based traveller, identified as Meenakshi Sengupta, lodged a complaint against the flight attendant.
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.
Proceeds may be used to partly pay off its Rs 46,570-cr debt
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.
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.
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.
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 aviation regulator DGCA had on May 21 issued seven bands of ticket pricing with lower and upper fare limits.
