The move is expected to give a major relief to Air India, which suffered a huge financial loss of around Rs 491 crore.
'IndiGo 2018 is a harsh, ultra-lean, mean, zero asset, fighting machine with aspirations of taking on the global long-haul low-cost market.'
Jet fuel or ATF prices were on Thursday were cut by a steep 4.5 per cent, the first reduction in rates in six months.
The introduction of private players would mean that trains will be available on demand and that passenger waitlist will decrease.
Aviation turbine fuel or jet fuel price was on Wednesday hiked by a steep 9.2 per cent, while that of non-subsidised cooking gas was raised by Rs 21 per cylinder.
Go First chief executive officer Kaushik Khona and tribunal-appointed interim resolution professional Abhilash Lal on Thursday reached out to the airline's staff, seeking their support for revival. While Khona said the company had taken all steps for the airline's revival, Lal put forward the view it would have to raise funds. Employee engagement took place a day after the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted the airline's insolvency plea on Wednesday and ordered a moratorium on recoveries.
Airlines are now pushing up fares and hopes to improve margins over the next three months to make up for the poor September quarter, even if it leads to a slight fall in their passenger load factor.
Jet Airways Ltd said on Friday it made a profit in the June quarter compared to a loss in the year-ago period, helped by a drop in fuel expenses.
While the automobile industry outrightly said no to Chidambaram's plea, the aviation sector largely remained non-committal.
ATF price in Delhi was reduced by Rs 4,765.5 per kilolitre (kl), or 11.9 per cent.
Singapore Airline along with its Indian JV partner have got clearance from the aviation ministry.
Airline stocks have been soaring following a steep decline in crude oil prices and sustained passenger traffic. Analysts have particularly turned bullish on the stocks of InterGlobe Aviation and SpiceJet. On December 20, shares of InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo) hit a record high of Rs 3,009 on the BSE, having surged 43.24 per cent year-to-date (YTD).
The tenth-largest US airline, ATA Airlines has filed for bankruptcy protection and sold off airport slots and other assets to AirTran Airways for $ 87.6 million, to become the latest US airline plagued by rising fuel costs and fare wars.
Rivals say the concessions would benefit AirAsia alone.
With tailwinds of strong operational performance and favourable market conditions, InterGlobe Aviation on Wednesday reported a record profit after tax of Rs 3,090.6 crore in the three months ended June. The parent of the country's largest airline also reported its highest-ever quarterly total income of Rs 17,160.9 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal, according to a release. The carrier, which had 316 planes in its fleet at the end of June 2023, had registered a loss of Rs 1,064.3 crore in the 2022 June quarter.
Indian airlines are expected to post a consolidated loss of $4.1 billion this fiscal, similar to what they are estimated to have incurred in 2020-21, taking the total losses of two years to around $8 billion as a result of the pandemic so far, aviation consultancy and research firm CAPA said on Thursday. In a report, CAPA expects domestic passenger traffic to be around 80-95 million in 2021-22 as against 52.5 million in the previous financial year. However, despite this growth, it will be well below than around 140 million passenger volumes recorded in 2019-20, CAPA said in the report. This projection of the traffic volume does not take into account the anticipated third wave of the pandemic, it added.
Initially, starting with a slightly curtailed capacity, the airline will increase the operating capacity over the subsequent months, also reopening selected international flights, depending on the existing international travel guidelines: IndiGo.
The Indian government allowed foreign airlines to buy up to 49 per cent stakes in Indian carriers in September 2012.
SpiceJet COO says ATF price cut is need of the hour.
Aviation Working Group (AWG), a global aviation leasing body comprising major planemakers and lessors, on Monday further downgraded India as lessors have not been able to repossess their planes from Go First more than four months after the airline filed for insolvency. The leasing cost stands as a prominent expense for Indian airlines. With AWG's downgrade, it is likely that lessors will increase the aircraft leasing rates for Indian carriers.
Domestic air passenger traffic touched 1.25 crore in January this year, an increase of 96 per cent compared to the year-ago period, according to rating agency Icra. However, it said the traffic remained around 2 per cent lower compared to the pre-Covid levels -- January 2020. The traffic stood at 64 lakh in January last year. Icra is maintaining a negative outlook on the Indian aviation industry, reflecting the view that the financial performance of Indian airlines is likely to remain under pressure in the near term, even though the recovery in domestic passenger traffic has been healthy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday laid the foundation stone for the Noida International Airport at Jewar in Uttar Pradesh. It will be one of the largest aerodromes in Asia.
The new airline has begun recruiting pilots and is close to confirming its top executives, including a Singapore Airlines executive as its chief executive officer.
Paramount Airways has ruled out buying a budget airline in India to expand operations as the company feels this would not be an attractive proposition for its business model.
The biggest let down for India's aviation sector has been the failure of the government to privatise Air India, says Anjuli Bhargava.
Jet fuel (ATF) rates were on slashed by a steep 12.5 per cent, the sixth straight reduction in prices since August, as international oil prices slumped to five-year low levels.
Let Air India - that anyway flies very limited international routes, often bleeding profusely and makes huge losses on trunk routes - do this national service, says Anjuli Bhargava.
This is a setback for the divestment process of Air India as no other Indian airline has the capability to fund the process
The government is keeping its options open.
A new Indian airline, proposed to be launched by the Tata Group, AirAsia and another Indian investor, is likely to start operations by the fourth quarter of this year with about $50 million initial investment by the Malaysian budget carrier.
He said the ministry was looking forward to suggestions from the state governments and discussions were underway with all the stakeholders to arrive at a policy which would bring back growth in the aviation sector.
Tata group-owned Air India plans to hire expat pilots for its Boeing 777 planes as the airline is facing a shortage of pilots amid plans to expand its fleet as well as international operations, according to sources. The carrier is looking to rope in around 100 pilots for the wide-body Boeing 777 fleet and has approached various agencies that provide expat flight crew to airlines, the sources told PTI. The loss-making Air India, which was under government ownership for nearly seven decades till the Tata group took over in January 2022, had stopped hiring expat pilots many years ago to save costs.
The airline which has not flown for more than a year, had reported a loss of Rs 755.17 crore (Rs 7.55 billion) a year earlier, Kingfisher said in a filing to the BSE.
Low-cost carrier IndiGo has asked American aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney (PW) to quickly provide engines for the airline to press its grounded planes back into service, sources said on Wednesday. The airline wants to increase its domestic frequency to fill the supply-side void created after Go First's exit, they added. Go First stopped operating flights from May 3 after filing an insolvency application with the National Company Law Tribunal.
A ministry's internal note proposes caps on minimum and maximum fares airlines can charge, keeping in mind their cost structure, profit margin and ensuring the last minute fares are not out of bounds of passengers.
The plane can fly non-stop to Singapore, Doha (Qatar), Kuwait, Abu Dhabi (UAE), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Tehran (Iran), Salalah (Oman) and Kunming (China), among other destinations, from various Indian airports.
Jet Airways, the largest domestic airline, will merge its no-frills brands JetLite and Jet Konnect and operate under the brand name of the latter.
Indian airlines are running into losses.
'I think some of us, like Mukesh Ambani, myself and those of us who head industrial units, ought to really focus on what we can really do to make the world a safer place, maybe 50 or 100 years from now.' 'For instance, how can we deal with climate change and global warming, right now?' 'The effects of it may not be felt now; in fact, we may pay a price for it today, but it will help the generations to follow.'
