Around 1,000 passenger complaints have been received against Air India during the last three months related to various issues, including refund of fares, overbooking of flights, and staff behaviour, Minister of State for Civil Aviation V K Singh said on Monday. The Tata Group on January 27 took control of Air India after winning the bid for the airline on October 8 last year. "Ministry of Civil Aviation has been receiving grievances related to air transport, including Air India, on the various issues such as refund of fares, flight issues, staff behaviour, baggage issues, overbooking of flights, etc," Singh said in his written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha.
The government on Friday announced it had entered into an agreement with the United States to establish an Aviation Cooperation Programme to modernise the sector's infrastructure.
The report quoted the civil defence as saying that there were no survivors in the incident.
Religare Enterprises, a financial services firm, has disclosed that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) turned down its application to appoint Rakesh Asthana as its whole-time director in May this year without citing any reasons. Asthana is a former top official of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). In a notice to the stock exchanges, Religare said that while the company and Asthana were weighing the options of dealing with the letter of refusal by the RBI, it was also busy in preparing for the "herculean task" of making ready multiple applications to regulators.
The state presently has 17 airstrips and 16 helipads.
The civil aviation ministry on Saturday said it was holding discussions with the Maharashtra government on launching an intra-state airline to operate services on feeder routes.
The proposal is awaiting final policy sanction from the home ministry.
The move follows the recent probe report by the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) that highlighted safety concerns involving Boeing 737 aircraft equipped with Collins Aerospace SVO-730 Rudder Rollout Guidance Actuators.
In a bid to bring down the cost of air operations, Aviation and Petroleum ministries will meet FM to get ATF notified as 'declared good'.
The four-day event, which will conclude on March 11, saw many foreign aircraft companies display their flying machines. Rediff.com's Venkata Sathish gives a preview.
.jpg)
Observing that the prime reason for these losses was high fuel cost which constituted almost 40-50 per cent of an airline's total costs, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said the aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices were high due to rising base price and "very high VAT imposed by state governments."
The US has said that it was committed to work with India to help it get back the Category 1 aviation safety rating "as soon as possible", a day after Washington downgraded India's ranking, bringing it below Pakistan and at par with countries like Ghana and Bangladesh.
'The airport's name 'Maharishi Valmiki International Airport, Ayodhyadham' pays homage to Maharishi Valmiki, the sage attributed to composing the epic Ramayana, adding a cultural touch to the airport's identity.'
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray leader Priyanka Chaturvedi on Wednesday took potshots at the rival Shiv Sena over its minister not finding a place in the reconstituted NITI Aayog.
Goa's second airport began operations last week and if all goes according to plans, the state will be the base for a new regional airline, Fly91. Promoted by the ex-executive vice-president of now grounded Kingfisher Airlines, Manoj Chacko, and Fairfax India's former head, Harsha Raghavan, the airline will offer no-frills buy on board product and serve unconnected routes with two ATR 72 aircraft. An application for the initial no-objection clearance was filed with the civil aviation ministry last week.
Limits and high taxes on FDIs have led to lesser investments in the Indian aviation sector.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) suspended the licences of 92 pilots in 2022 for violating safety norms, which was more than double the 2021 figure. The number of scheduled flights (domestic and international) in India increased by 32.74 per cent to 1.3 million in 2022, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium. A DGCA official stated that the minimum period of licence suspension in 2022 was one month and the maximum was three years.
Says banks strong enough to tackle the problem on their own
The Centre on Thursday said Indian passengers from Ukraine can return via Qatar, with aviation industry experts stating that civilian flights will restart from Ukraine only when its airspace opens.
Scheduled international flights have been suspended in India since March 23 last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The relaxation has been given to facilitate "smooth conduct of air operations", the ministry's order stated.
Citing various aspects, the forum has appealed to the DGCA to "withdraw the harsh punishment and suspension of the PIC". it said.
The presence of an engine maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) facility in India could have prevented Go First airline from going "belly up", as sending engines abroad for servicing is not an efficient way to operate a carrier, Piyush Srivastava, senior economic advisor, Ministry of Civil Aviation, said in a statement on Tuesday. On May 3, Go First suspended its flights and filed for insolvency, squarely blaming engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney (PW) for its cash crunch. The airline claimed that about half of its 54 aircraft were grounded on May 3 due to a delay in the supply of engines by the US-based company. PW has denied the charges.
Deploying additional Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel, providing real-time updates through social media, adding more immigration counters and ensuring 100 per cent manning of immigration counters - these are some of the steps that the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) is now taking in coordination with other stakeholders to avoid congestion at major airports during the upcoming festival season. During the last year's festival and winter season, major airports in the country suffered from congestion due to lack of sufficient airport infrastructure, inadequate X-ray screening machines, bunching of flights at peak hours, as well as inadequate CISF and immigration personnel, the MoCA stated on Thursday. Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, after last year's congestion issue, had asked major airports - including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai - to identify bottlenecks and augment capacity to meet the growing passenger demand.
Following random testing, if anybody is found Covid-positive, the sample should be sent for genomic testing at the designated INSACOG laboratory network, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote in a letter to his civil aviation ministry counterpart Rajiv Bansal.
In the short video clip, other crew members could be seen shouting at the passenger after he hit the pilot.
The last commercial flight between India and Afghanistan was operated by Air India on Kabul-Delhi route on August 15, the day Kabul fell to the Taliban.
Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had advised airlines on Saturday night to open bookings only after the government takes a decision on resumption of passenger flights.
The suspension of scheduled international passenger flights in the country has been extended "till further orders", aviation regulator DGCA said on Monday.
A passenger on a New York-New Delhi American Airlines flight allegedly urinated on a fellow male passenger in a drunken state, sources said on Sunday.
The woman said she was constrained to approach the court because Air India and the DGCA failed to treat her with care and responsibility after the incident.
The suspension of scheduled international passenger flights in the country has been extended till February 28, aviation regulator DGCA said on Wednesday.
India has formed air-bubble pacts with around 28 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom. the United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Bhutan and France.
In his second term in office, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has retained 34 portfolios.
Tata Group-owned Air India will buy 250 aircraft, including 40 wide-body planes, from Airbus as the airline expands its fleet and operations. This is the first time in more than 17 years that Air India has placed an aircraft order. It is also the first order placed by the carrier under the ownership of Tata Group. On Tuesday, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said Air India has signed a letter of intent to acquire 250 aircraft from Airbus.
The DGCA has has commenced an investigation to ascertain the cause of the incident.
The threats via microblogging platform X came a day after three international flights originating from Mumbai received bomb threats, causing trouble to hundreds of passengers and airline crew.
Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi attended an event organised for Abhidhamma Day in Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh, which saw the participation of Buddhist monks from many countries.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on Tuesday as the Monsoon Session of Parliament gets underway next week with the united opposition set to corner the National Democratic Alliance government on issues ranging from the NEET paper leak case and railway safety.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances