On Monday, the five independent directors of the company -- Anand Mahindra of Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry's secretary general Amit Mitra, Ambuja Realty chairman Harsh Neotia and former air chief Fali H Major -- met Prime Minister's principal secretary T K A Nair and reportedly expressed their anguish over the appointments being made by the company.
Starting this October, Air India Express will fly Cochin-Chennai, Cochin-Hyderabad, Cochin-Bangalore, Bangalore-Chennai, Chennai-Kolkata, Hyderabad-Kolkata and Kolkata-Agartala.
It will be too premature to draw conclusions on the role of pilots from the preliminary investigation report into the fatal crash of Air India plane last month and the final report will mention about the most probable cause for the accident, former Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) chief Aurobindo Handa said on Sunday.
At least 158 people are feared dead after an Air India Express aircraft from Dubai, carrying 173 passengers, overshot the runway while landing at the Mangalore airport in Karnataka on Saturday morning.
The EoI and the share purchase agreement would be issued in January itself for the bidders. While Air India's net loss in 2018-19 was around Rs 8,556 crore, its current total debt is around Rs 80,000 crore.
The Delhi high court on Thursday dismissed BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's plea seeking to set aside the Air India divestment process on the allegation that the methodology adopted by the government in the valuation of the national carrier was "arbitrary, illegal and against public interest". The order was passed by a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh. The court said a detailed order will be uploaded. "Dr. Subramanian Swamy, sir we are dismissing this matter...," the bench said.
United States President Donald Trump reiterated the claims of having to do 'something' about Greenland, saying that if US doesn't take any action, Russia and China would spring in and that Washington, DC does not want to have them as neighbours.
The government will transfer about Rs 16,000 crore of unpaid fuel bills and other pending dues that Air India owes to suppliers, to a special purpose vehicle before handing over the loss-making airline to the Tata Group, a senior official said. Air India Assets Holding Ltd (AIAHL), which will hold non-core assets of Air India such as land and building, will also be saddled with 75 per cent of the airline's debt that the Tata Group is not taking over. Besides the debt, the excess liability going to AIAHL comprises unpaid fuel bills to oil companies, airport operators and vendors, said Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Secretary to the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management - the department running the privatisation programme of the government.
Air India Boeing 787-8 crash in Ahmedabad has brought back all traumatic memories.
'Other than blaming the pilot, there is zero accountability.'
Former Civil Aviation Minister and senior NCP leader Praful Patel on Wednesday questioned the "silence" of Singapore Airlines over the horrific crash of an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner in Ahmedabad last week.
An Air India pilots' grouping has raised fatigue concerns in the wake of flight crew rosters generated using a new rostering tool, saying that extended waiting periods between duty time will jeopardise crew alertness and performance. "Extended waiting periods, occurring before active flight duties, run counter to enhancing crew readiness and, in fact, contribute to the accumulation of fatigue over time," the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) has said. In a letter to Air India head of safety Henry Donohoe last week, IPG said it has been recently observed that the relentless pursuit of operational efficiency and economic gains has led to an unintended overshadowing of the primary intent behind Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) regulations.
No response has been received for the Expression of Interest floated for the strategic divestment of Air India
The truth about what triggered the fatal crash of the Dreamliner should not only help bring the guilty to book, but also outline the future course of action in aviation safety, notes Nivedita Mookerji.
In the message posted by Tata Group on X, he also said the group will cover the medical expenses of those injured and ensure that they receive all necessary care and support.
In a statement, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said the airport and emergency teams responded swiftly and effectively after a full emergency was declared at 18.05 hours.
'...rectification has to happen then and there, and that takes additional time.'
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.
The government proposes to divest 76 per cent of Air India, along with its shareholding in Air India Express and its ground-handling subsidiary, AISATS.
Weighed down by surging jet fuel prices, Air-India's net profit plunged by a huge 82.54 per cent at Rs 16.29 crore (Rs 162.9 million) for the year 2005-06.
According to the officials, generally, a passenger is not served more than 100 ml of liquor during a flight.
Virtually addressing employees of Air India across the globe, he said for the airline to be the best again there will be an organisational redesign, and it will "require a huge transformation, probably the largest transformation and the change all of you would ever go through". The carrier will expand its "outreach both domestically and internationally" and it has the desire to connect India with every part of the globe, he added.
Government officials say a shareholding structure has been mandated to discourage non-serious bidders from accessing Air India's data room
Members of the Indian cricket fraternity expressed deep sorrow and extended heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families on Thursday after a London-bound Air India flight crashed shortly after takeoff in Gujarat's Ahmedabad.
When the Tatas re-boarded Air India on January 27 last year, the price of aviation turbine fuel was at over Rs 80,000 per kilolitre. Rupee was trading at around Rs 74 to a US dollar. The Omicron variant of Covid-19 was in prevalence - barely a week earlier, India had reported over 340,000 cases on a single day. Seven-day home quarantine of international travellers was the norm.
Air India pilot unions IPG and ICPA on Monday sought Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri's intervention on the wage cut issue and also requested for an "urgent" meeting with him on several other issues. "In our meetings in September, you had given us an assurance to look into our grievances positively. "While other airlines are rolling back the austerity pay cuts for their pilots, the wage cut for Air India pilots further increased from October.
Apart from the main company, five of Air India's subsidiaries and a joint venture firm have been included in the strategic sale plan.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced plans for a vast underground tunnel network in Mumbai to ease traffic congestion, describing it as a 'Paatal Lok,' a parallel road system. The tunnel grid will cover the city in multiple directions, complementing existing arterial routes and Metro corridors. Several tunnel projects are under construction, including Thane-Borivali and Mulund-Goregaon, to improve east-west connectivity. An integrated Mumbai One app has been launched to enable a common ticket for various modes of transport.
The pilots have been "derostered" pending investigation, Air India Express later said in a statement.
"Heartbroken by the loss of Shri @RNTata2000 Ji, whose visionary leadership not only transformed India's industry but also played a pivotal role in shaping our aviation sector," Naidu said in a post on X.
President Droupadi Murmu undertook a sortie in a Rafale fighter jet from the Air Force Station in Ambala. This follows a previous sortie in a Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter aircraft in April 2023.
Air India pilots said Ahmedabad airport has long been known for bird activity near the runway, which could have contributed to the incident.
Two unions representing Air India pilots have asked members not to accept the revised compensation and employment offer, calling the company's proposals "unfair labour practices." They said any coercion on pilots to sign the offer would lead to industrial unrest. The Tata group airline announced on Monday a new salary structure for pilots and cabin crew.
'India is a top-tier security partner for Australia and we continue to prioritise practical and tangible cooperation that directly contributes to Indo-Pacific stability.'
With over 700,000 annual passengers and 21 per cent market share Air India is the largest carrier on India-United Kingdom routes.
The Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) has expressed concerns over the preliminary investigation report on the Air India Boeing 787 plane crash, calling it premature and irresponsible to assign blame before a thorough investigation.
National carrier Air India's strategy to cut full-service flights and replace them with low-cost services by Air India Express on its West Asian routes has backfired. The passenger load factor of the flag carrier's low-cost subsidiary for West Asia has fallen a steep 11 percentage points over the last six months as a result of competition from new low-cost entrants and fare wars by incumbents. The PLF on the Dubai-India route fell from 83 to 78 per cent in the same period.
The development comes as relations between the two countries showed marked improvement following the four-day military conflict between Pakistan and India in May.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances