Nearly three decades after the ambitious project was first conceived to decongest the existing airport in the financial capital, the greenfield Navi Mumbai International Airport became a reality on Thursday as an IndiGo Airbus A320 from Bengaluru landed on the tarmac at 8 am amid a traditional water cannon salute.
The country's largest airline IndiGo, which faced massive operational disruptions earlier this month, saw its domestic market share slide to 63.6 per cent in November, according to official data. Air India Group, comprising Air India and Air India Express, and SpiceJet had their respective market shares in November rise to 26.7 per cent and 3.7 per cent, respectively.
An Air India Express flight cabin crew has been arrested by the Customs for allegedly smuggling over 1.4 kg gold through Cochin International Airport near Kochi, official sources said.
"Microsoft Windows reports major service outages globally. IT services/ check in systems at airports are impacted," as per a message for the passengers at the Varanasi airport.
Dense fog disrupted operations at Delhi airport, leading to cancellations and delays of hundreds of flights. Airlines are offering refunds and rescheduling options.
As many as 338 A320 family aircraft operated by Indian airlines require the software upgrade to address a potential issue related to flight controls, and modifications have been carried out in more than half of the affected fleet, according to DGCA data.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) on Sunday issued an advisory warning that fog conditions in parts of northern India are affecting visibility and may lead to delays or changes in flight operations at select airports.
According to the latest data from the aviation regulator DGCA, IndiGo and Air India did not cancel any flights, while Air India Express cancelled four flights due to the system modification process.
Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran on Saturday said Air India, which is undergoing a transformation, is not just a business opportunity but a "responsibility" for the Tata Group.
An Air India Express flight from Delhi to Indore, carrying 161 passengers, experienced an engine fault mid-air. The pilot issued a 'PAN-PAN' call, indicating a non-life-threatening emergency, and the plane landed safely in Indore with a slight delay.
In recent times, there have also been instances of GPS spoofing and interference incidents at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Amritsar, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai airports.
Flyers faced a double blow as air fares on Air India flights out of Delhi and those of SpiceJet soared past Rs 1 lakh one-way on some routes, and even those showed 'sold out' despite the airlines adding capacity.
The matter was reported to the relevant authorities on landing and is currently under investigation, the airline said.
Air India Group expects to induct 26 wide-body and narrow-body planes, and operate 81 per cent of its international flights with upgraded aircraft by the end of 2026, while overall capacity will remain almost unchanged next year.
Indian airlines are resuming normal services to Kathmandu after the airport reopened following unrest in Nepal. Air India and IndiGo will operate additional flights to bring back stranded passengers.
Over 100 flights were delayed at the Delhi airport on Friday morning due to technical problems with the air traffic control system and authorities are working to fix the issues, sources said.
'It has got to be the biggest error in aviation. If it is the biggest error, then all those individuals in positions of power should be removed because they have caused the biggest meltdown in Indian aviation history.'
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft that went down soon after take-off was operating the flight 'AI 171' from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick.
Air India and Air India Express on Tuesday progressively resumed their services to the Middle East, with flights to Dubai and Muscat, respectively, as countries in the region reopened their airspaces.
On Wednesday, Surat airport remained operational for an extra one hour waiting for the landing of an Air India Express flight that took off more than an hour late from the national capital.
Several airlines, including Air India and IndiGo, have cancelled flights to and from Kathmandu due to the temporary closure of Tribhuvan International Airport amid anti-government protests. Passengers are advised to defer travel until the situation stabilizes.
'In the inspections, no issues were found with the said locking mechanism.'
After a London-bound Air India aircraft crashed shortly after taking off from the Ahmedabad airport on Thursday, the spotlight is back on India's history with aviation disasters.
The civil aviation ministry reports six aircraft engine shutdown incidents and three May Day calls in India this year. The Air India plane crash investigation is ongoing, with all aspects being examined.
The DGCA has asked airlines to inspect the fuel switch locking system in their Boeing 787 and 737 planes after a preliminary probe report into the Air India crash found that the switches were cut off before the accident.
After the merger of Indian and Air India, their subsidiaries - Alliance Air and Air India Express - would be merged as well.
A five-member team, headed by Sanjay Kumar Singh, is probing the fatal crash of the Air India aircraft last month in Ahmedabad that killed 260 people. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has released its preliminary report and appointed the team.
Civilian flight operations from the 32 airports across northern and western India, including Srinagar and Amritsar, were suspended from May 9 to May 15.
IndiGo, which operates the largest fleet among Indian carriers, has reported the highest number of serious engine-related incidents.
Amid mounting safety concerns and the cancellation of at least 66 flights that were to be operated with Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, DGCA officials held a detailed review meeting with top Air India and Air India Express executives.
Kochi will be the new headquarters of Air India Express, while Thiruvananthapuram will be the main engineering centre of the airline.
The airline will operate an additional flight every Monday, originating from Chennai and flying via Tiruchirapalli to Abu Dhabi, thereby bring the total number of flights it operates on this route to three per week.
The Boeing 787-8 aircraft -- VT-ANB -- was 11.5 years old and had flown for more than 41,000 hours, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
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 Boeing 787-8 crash in Ahmedabad has brought back all traumatic memories.
India's last three major commercial aviation accidents --Patna (2000), Mangaluru (2010), and Kozhikode (2020) -- could offer critical safety lessons for the ongoing investigation.
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 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.
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.
In a bid to retain employees and lure more youngsters to join the company, Air India Express would come out with attractive packages for its crew, a top official of the low-cost airline subsidiary of Air India said on Wednesday.
