The government will start working on selling the ground-handling arm of erstwhile national carrier Air India and the Expression of Interest (EoI) is expected in the next fiscal, an official said. "We already have the Cabinet approval for selling the subsidiaries of Air India. "So we will come out with an EoI inviting bids for one of the ground-handling arms in the next fiscal," an official told PTI.
Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu assures a clean investigation into the Air India plane crash, dismissing concerns of manipulation. The statement follows calls for a judicial probe and criticism of selective leaks from the preliminary report.
Starting this October, Air India Express will fly Cochin-Chennai, Cochin-Hyderabad, Cochin-Bangalore, Bangalore-Chennai, Chennai-Kolkata, Hyderabad-Kolkata and Kolkata-Agartala.
In the Indo-Pacific's new era -- where perception shapes reality faster than treaties -- the real entrapment is not of China or the United States. It is the test Japan has set for itself -- and whether partners like India, acting as balancers rather than accelerants, can help ensure that the story ends in stability, points out Varun Arya.
Flight AI173 from Delhi was diverted to Magadan in Russia on Tuesday owing to an engine glitch, the Tata Group-owned private carrier said in a statement.
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 home ministry has given security clearance to Air India CEO-designate Campbell Wilson, paving the way for him to take charge of the airline, according to a senior official. The appointment of Wilson as the chief executive officer and managing director of Air India was announced by Tata Sons on May 12. Tata Sons took over the loss-making carrier on January 27.
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.
What we are watching is something different: A fog manufactured and maintained by the people who started the war, so that the question of why it was started never has to be answered, observes Prem Panicker in his must read blog on the war in the Middle East.
The MEA release said that the embassy of India in Kabul will further augment India's contribution to Afghanistan's comprehensive development.
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.
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned the violation of Qatar's sovereignty following Israeli air strikes on Doha, targeting Hamas leaders. He conveyed India's deep concern to the Emir of Qatar and reiterated support for peace and stability in the region.
Three women from Arunachal Pradesh living in Delhi allege they were subjected to racial slurs and harassment by their neighbors following a minor dispute over dust from an AC installation.
No response has been received for the Expression of Interest floated for the strategic divestment of Air India
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) on Thursday said it has reviewed the facilities at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex, which is hosting the $950,000 India Open, and asserted that the venue meets all requirements for staging the World Championships in August.
More than 300 flights have been cancelled and at least 25 airports, including Srinagar, have been temporarily shut for operations amid restrictions in the wake of the armed forces launching missile attacks on terror targets in Pakistan on Wednesday morning.
The enduring relationship between the two countries have survived the disintegration of the erstwhile USSR in 1991, the end of the Cold War and the regime change in both countries, points out Rup Narayan Das.
'Should China's interest in the Teesta River projects be approved, it would likely result in heightened Chinese presence near the Siliguri corridor.'
The operations of many global carriers, including Qatar Airways, have also been impacted due to the airspace curbs in the wake of the Middle East tensions.
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.
Government officials say a shareholding structure has been mandated to discourage non-serious bidders from accessing Air India's data room
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.
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.
Indian airlines are likely to face additional weekly expenses of Rs 77 crore for international flights operated from north Indian cities as the airspace curbs result in increased fuel consumption and longer flight duration. An analysis of the number of overseas flights and back-of-the-envelope calculations based on increased flight time as well as approximate expenses by PTI showed that the additional monthly operational costs could be over Rs 306 crore.
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.
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Northeast's first Emergency Landing Facility in Assam, boosting regional defense and disaster response capabilities.
The pilots have been "derostered" pending investigation, Air India Express later said in a statement.
'Some success has been achieved in raising the costs of terrorism for Pakistan.'
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.
DGCA provided temporary relief to IndiGo, which is partially owned by Rahul Bhatia, by rolling back the night duty definition to 12 am-5 am from 12 am-6 am earlier, and allowing its pilots to do six night-landings from two earlier, besides other relaxations.
Upset fans express disappointment after 4th T20I abandoned due to air pollution.
Sheena Bora's birthday fell on February 11 and it's been 14 years since she disappeared into thin air. She would have been 39. Nearly one-and-a-half decades later are we patiently inching nearer to knowing the truth of what happened?
India has advised its citizens to defer travel to Nepal due to ongoing unrest and anti-government protests. The Ministry of External Affairs has also urged Indian citizens currently in Nepal to exercise caution and avoid public areas.
The Supreme Court has suggested that the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) consider establishing gaushalas (cowsheds) under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to care for stray animals entering highways. The court also expressed dissatisfaction with several states' efforts to manage stray dog populations and suggested developing an app to report stray animal sightings.
