Based on the Skytrax ranking for 2018, IndiGo is number two among the best low-cost carriers in Asia, behind rival AirAsia.
All airports and air carriers are being informed to be ready for operations from May 25. SOPs for passenger movement are also being separately issued by the ministry of civil aviation.
The airlines have waived charges for transport of relief cargo to Chennai.
Two aborted missions, three different ministers, multiple rule changes and two decades later, Indian taxpayers will no longer have to pay Rs 20 crore per day to keep the loss-making Air India flying. While opposition Congress expectedly attacked the decision as selling the family silver, DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said what Tata is getting is not a cash cow but an airline which is bleeding where money needs to be pumped in to refurbish obsolete aircraft and dust up strangled ones while being unable to touch any employee for one year and only be able to resize staff after paying a VRS. "It won't be a very easy task there. Only advantage is they (new Air India owner) are paying the price which they think they can manage. "They are not taking the excessive debt accumulated to fund years of losses. We are continuing it as an ongoing concern.... This process has also saved huge amount of taxpayers money going forward," Pandey told PTI.
Expected to end four years of administrative turmoil in Indian boxing, the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) was elected to office with businessman Ajay Singh winning the Presidential poll by an overwhelming margin.
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.
Although a merger with low-cost carrier SpiceJet would have made the Kingfisher-Deccan combine the largest carrier in Indian skies, it would have put a huge burden on the Vijay Mallya-controlled carrier's financials, feel experts. SpiceJet's losses have almost doubled to Rs 133 crore (Rs 1.33 billion) this year -- of which Rs 123 crore (Rs 1.23 billion) were incurred in the March quarter -- as compared with last year.
A row had erupted after the Trinamool Congress alleged that the IndiGo aircraft carrying its chief Banerjee was not accorded priority in landing despite fuel shortage.
