Low-cost airline, Spicejet is awaiting the government's approval to commence its international operations soon, a top company official said on Tuesday. Announcing the launch of new flights from Coimbatore to Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad from Oct 25, Kamal Hingorani, vice-president, sales and marketing, Spicejet, said the company was expecting approval from the Centre from May.
SpiceJet, India's second-largest private airline, kicked off the process of hiving off its logistics business to its subsidiary SpiceXpress as it looks to raise much-needed capital. On Tuesday, the company sought its shareholders' approval to complete the process and to raise up to Rs 2,500 crore via a qualified institutions placement (QIP). It is in talks with multiple private equity investors as it tries to sell shares in the logistics arm to raise money.
The flight with about 70 passengers on board left Chennai around 7.30 am and when it was about to land around 8:25 am, smoke was noticed from one of its engines.
The airline was forced to ground its fleet in December after running out of cash.
Budget airline Spicejet on Thursday announced its second flight in Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai sector.
Airports across the country witnessed chaotic scenes on Friday after dozens of flights were either delayed or cancelled after a widespread global computer outage that also hit operations like cash withdrawal at some banks, and impacted functioning of some brokerages. Globally, the Microsoft cloud outage led to US airlines cancelling flights, but the tech giant later reportedly said its cloud services outage in the Central US region has been resolved.
About 40 quit last November as the airline cut down its fleet.
Concerned over the deteriorating condition of SpiceJet, aviation regulator DGCA on Friday withdrew 186 of its slots and asked it to clear salary dues of all its employees in the next ten days.
"Financial bids for Air India disinvestment received by Transaction Adviser. Process now moves to concluding stage," DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey tweeted.
Passi was suspended from her job from March 16 this year.
Budget carrier SpiceJet has accepted the resignation of its chief Executive Niel Raymond Mills, 18 months before his service contract was to expire.
SpiceJet announced discounted fares on domestic sector.
The DGCA official who wrongly assigned the code of Antonov AN-32 -- an aircraft used by the IAF -- to the SpiceJet aircraft has been suspended, report Arindam Majumder and Aneesh Phadnis.
The plane can fly non-stop to Singapore, Doha (Qatar), Kuwait, Abu Dhabi (UAE), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Tehran (Iran), Salalah (Oman) and Kunming (China), among other destinations, from various Indian airports.
No-frills carrier SpiceJet on Tuesday put on sale 1 lakh seats on its select domestic flights for just Re 1.
BSE has sought clarification from the company with respect to the media report stating that Spicejet is to sell part/complete stake to an investor.
Air India, which operates 72 weekly flights from various cities to Dubai, and IndiGo cancelled their services on Wednesday.
The airline is trying to save on wage costs by cutting the normal notice period of six months by about half for pilots who have already resigned.
Confirming the resignation of Aggarwal, airline sources said Kishore Gupta, a member of the SpiceJet board, is likely to take over the position for the time being as part of an interim arrangement.
SpiceJet was forced to ground its fleet and cancel hundreds of its flights in December.
The civil aviation ministry appears supportive of SpiceJet because it does not want another airline to fail. The real test now will be the capacity of the airline's chairman, Kalanithi Maran, to raise funds. And he needs to do this quickly.
Made from Jatropha crop, the fuel has been developed by the CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun.
The sale launched on Tuesday will be open till October 29.
SpiceJet slumped slumped almost 14 per cent amid reports that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has decided to withdraw credit facility to the low-cost carrier.
Boeing 737 MAX planes were globally grounded in March 2019, after two of these crashed within five months, raising safety concerns.
The market, however, reacted negatively to SpiceJet's announcement and the company's stock dropped by 0.87 per cent as analysts became wary of diversion into a new business during a high fuel price environment.
SpiceJet would see a capital infusion of Rs 1,500 crore.
Kalanithi Maran, the former promoter of Spicejet, has moved the Delhi High Court against the airline.
Amid a massive global outage that hit operations of airlines, banks and businesses across the globe, Microsoft on Friday said that it is aware of the issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform.
The move comes amid expectations that the government would allow foreign airlines to invest directly in Indian carriers.
Domestic air traffic rose 4.8 per cent on an annual basis to 126.48 lakh in February, while more than 1.55 lakh passengers were affected by flight delays during the same period, according to official data released on Friday. In February, Air India's market share rose to 12.8 per cent from 12.2 per cent while that of IndiGo marginally dipped to 60.1 per cent from 60.2 per cent in January. The domestic air traffic climbed to 126.48 lakh in February compared to 120.69 lakh in the year-ago period, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said.
Singapore-based Tigerair has terminated its passenger swapping pact with Spicejet over a year after the two budget carriers forged the inter-line arrangements.
A consortium led by Ajay Singh is initially expected to invest Rs 1,200 cr, largely to cover liabilities.
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.
DGCA rules require pilots to service a six-month notice.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma said that there was no question of any bail out to the beleaguered carrier
While nobody was injured in the incident, it forced the airport to divert a few other flights.
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Officials in India's civil aviation ministry are now expected to meet SpiceJet stakeholders within a couple of days to discuss the revival plan
The pilot-in-command has been sacked for violating aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation's safety norms after following due process, SpiceJet said in a statement.
The official said that the licences of the two pilots -- Ajinkya Hanchate and Tushar Dasgupta -- have been suspended for one year and they also have to undergo corrective training.
