Boeing Corp. will on Sunday roll out its latest offering - the Boeing 787 Dreamliner - billed as the most economical and fuel efficient jet that will soon make its debut in India with top airlines Air India and Jet Airways placing orders for 37 jets.
'When there are glaring errors in the report, how can you trust anything in it?'
The entire 50-strong global fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners, including six of Air India, were grounded on Thursday after US regulator FAA asked airlines to stop their operations temporarily till a battery fire risk was corrected.
Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a long-range, mid-size wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner.
On Monday night, Air India hosted a dinner Melbourne for the Indian diaspora and Australian leader and government officials to mark its launch in Victoria.
The company has dismissed 194 cabin crew and 11 pilots over past year for unauthorised absence and such reasons.
At present, Air India offers eight first class, 35 business class and 195 economy class seats in its Boeing 777 200-LRs.
'Humanly impossible for the switches to turn from on to off at rapid succession within one second'
'In those 10 seconds, they even made a MAYDAY call -- which is only issued in case of a serious, imminent emergency.'
Vishwas Kumar Ramesh, the sole survivor of the Air India plane crash, has been discharged from the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital following his recovery, and he later attended the cremation of his deceased brother who was flying with him on the same aircraft, officials said on Wednesday.
'If anything happened out of the normal, there would be instantaneous ECAM, EICAS warnings, the master caution or master warnings going off.' 'It would be like a Christmas tree in the cockpit if things start going wrong.'
An Air India Dreamliner, with 184 passengers and crew onboard operating on London-Delhi route, made "priority" landing at the IGI Airport after some warning lights indicating problem with the braking system blipped in the cockpit.
They were asked to wait for 72 hours, but the deadline passed on Sunday and the wait seems endless.
Air India has deferred inducting the 16th Dreamliner into its fleet as the aircraft experienced technical trouble during recent test flights in Seattle headquarters of the US manufacturer Boeing.
US aircraft manufacturer Boeing has asked Air India to avoid flying its Dreamliner planes near thunderstorms as it enhanced the risk of icing on engines and the airline has changed its operating procedures accordingly.
The national carrier, which had placed orders for 27 Dreamliners in 2006, has so far taken the delivery of 13 aircraft.
Aviation regulator DGCA has found "human error" among others as the cause of an incident at the Bengaluru airport two years ago involving an Air India Dreamliner plane, in which the aircraft's fuselage panel had fallen off at runway during landing.
The maiden flight, which is part of a comprehensive flight-test programme leading to its certification and delivery in mid-2014, was for over five hours with a Boeing spokesperson saying here that it was successful.
This was one of the planes being readied for Air India that has ordered 27 of them, official sources said.
'...from the recovered part of the throttle quadrant -- the control panel that manages engine power -- it is hard to say at this stage if the locking mechanism was damaged in any way.'
Air India postpones plan to put new long-haul aircraft on Australia route.
A Cabinet decision is still awaited on the induction of Dreamliner into the cash-strapped AI fleet.
'If major components of any dead body from which you can retrieve DNA is available, that is enough.'
Air India's home market share has fallen from 19.8% in January to 18% in July.
This is only the second aircraft to be built at the airframer's Charleston, South Carolina, facility.
It is a similar story several thousand miles away, outside the company's North Charleston, South Carolina final assembly building, where space is taken up by four 787s destined for Air India.
An investigation into the battery of Boeing 787 Dreamliner that caused a fire in Boston early this month, showed signs of thermal runway and short-circuiting, US government investigators said.
Media reports said that Air India's Flight AI-312 landed at Sydney Airport at 8.29 am (local time) few minutes behind its schedule and then to Melbourne early afternoon at 11.59 am.
Air India says it would be operating its new Boeing-787 Dreamliner aircraft on key domestic routes, not abroad, to begin with. The first of these is to be inducted later this month, on routes such as Mumbai-Delhi.
All the 50 Dreamliners delivered by Boeing to airlines across the world, including six of Air India, have been grounded following two incidents of fire and smoke in the lithium ion batteries.
A large panel on the belly of a Bangalore-bound Dreamliner of Air India fell off mid-air, putting about 150 passengers on board at a grave risk, but the aircraft landed safely.
A part of the proceeds will also be used for operational requirements, sources said in Mumbai. The carrier has already taken the delivery of 11 Dreamliners and three more are expected to join the fleet by March of next year.
Facing disruptions due to non-availability of crew, Vistara on Sunday announced reducing 10 per cent of its capacity or 25-30 flights daily and most of the cancellations are in the domestic network as the Tata Group airline strives to stabilise operations. The full-service carrier is to operate over 300 flights daily in the ongoing summer schedule and witnessed significant disruptions earlier this week as many pilots reported sick, resulting in cancellations of flights. "We are carefully scaling back our operations by around 25-30 flights per day, i.e. roughly 10 per cent of the capacity we were operating.
The total cost will include expenses related to crew, fuel, navigation, landing and parking charges.
Aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked Vistara to submit a daily report on flight cancellations and delays as the Tata group airline cancelled more than 50 flights for the second straight day on Tuesday amid non-availability of pilots.
A technical problem with an Air India Dreamliner from Kolkata led to an overnight ordeal for around 130 passengers who reached New Delhi after a 13 hour delay.
This is the third instance in the last three days when the aviation regulator grounded a plane after an incident.
Boeing's 50 Dreamliners in service have been grounded since mid-January following two incidents involving battery problems.
Air India is going all out to woo business class travellers asking them to fly the Dreamliner, but the jury is out on whether that will be enough to create a brand image.
Eyeing potential business opportunity, Boeing Corporation is planning to approach the proposed Tata-Singapore Airlines.
