The government on Wednesday directed online travel aggregators to process pending refunds related to air ticket bookings during the coronavirus lockdown period by the third week of November. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, there was a nationwide lockdown for varying periods starting from March 25, 2020, and scheduled commercial flight services were also suspended for a certain period. On Wednesday, the consumer affairs ministry held a meeting with online travel aggregators to discuss issues prejudicial to consumer interest in the travel sector.
The government also increased the power of the FIPB.
This comes against the backdrop of rising concerns in various quarters about steep fluctuations in airfares.
SpiceJet announced it has started a five-day "1+1 offer sale" where it was offering one-way base fares starting as low as Rs 899, excluding taxes, on its domestic network.
The civil aviation sector is witnessing a number of initiatives
"By the time this fiscal year ends and then next one starts and unless someone does a harakiri in lowering their fare, we see a good scenario beginning April onwards," Boeing India president Dinesh Keskar told PTI in an interview.
Adani Group on Thursday said it has formed a 50:50 joint venture with Japanese conglomerate Kowa Group for sale of green hydrogen in Japan, Taiwan and Hawaii markets. Billionaire Gautam Adani-led conglomerate is investing up to $50 billion over the next 10 years in setting up a fully integrated green hydrogen ecosystem in India. This includes the production of 1 million tonne of green hydrogen in the initial phase which will be ramped up to 3 million tonne later.
The Group of Ministers, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, would meet for the second time on November 12 to discuss in-depth the financial problems faced by Air India as well as the aviation sector in general.
Though the Indian aviation sector is finding it tough to glide smoothly due to the rise in operating cost, Indian Inc seems to be flying high with new aircraft buys
Jet Airways has terminated the services of 43 trainee junior technicians of the engineering department as part of its cost-cutting measures.
The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) on Friday deferred a decision on Rs 2,000-crore (Rs 20 billion) Jet-Etihad deal, the largest foreign investment in the Indian aviation sector, and sought clarity on control and ownership.
While IndiGo carried 16.82 lakh passengers, a 59.4 per cent share of the total domestic market, SpiceJet flew 3.91 lakh passengers, which is 13.8 per cent share of the total market, the DGCA data noted.
Experts said the risks associated with the Indian Experts say that aviation sector would keep investors away from airline stocks.
There are both positive and negative impacts of the tax, but the net result for India's infrastructure sector is advantageous, says Vinayak Chatterjee.
For Jet's revival, Mr Jalan should be on the scene long enough for everyone to get to know him, appreciate his skills, and not vanish into thin air within a matter of months or even weeks, observes Anjuli Bhargava.
Though Indian banks don't have large exposure to subprime mortgages, analysts are worried at the rise in their restructured loan portfolios and deterioration in credit quality.
In their new venture, Tata SIA Airlines Ltd, Tata Sons would hold 51 per cent stake and Singapore Airlines 49 per cent.
It is the first project of its kind in which a military aircraft will be manufactured in India by a private company.
The financial downslide took its toll on the Indian aviation sector with the passenger traffic recording a negative growth rate of about eight per cent in the first half of this year.
Online bus booking started in India around 18 months ago. It is estimated to be a 15,000-crore market and is growing at 20 per cent a month. Currently, bus booking is less than 0.01 per cent of the total online travel booking segment. On an average, portals charge 10-20 per cent commission on ticket value from bus operators. On an airline booking, it is below 5 per cent.
Sundays are generally quiet days for air travel, but this Sunday was a tad different. There was quite an excitement at Gate 28 of Mumbai airport's Terminal 1 as Akasa Air, India's newest airline, prepared to take to the skies on Day 1. With a new fuel-efficient Boeing 737 Max aircraft and soft cushioned seats equipped with USB ports, Akasa Air hopes to bring freshness to the flying experience.
The only two truly successful private airlines in India - Jet Airways and IndiGo - have been set up and run by people who knew the ins and outs of the trade well before they took to the skies.
'Unless cash has ceased to be king, the issue is the same in the aviation, telecom and ecommerce sectors: Sustainability,' notes T N Ninan.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is studying whether a particular airline has a dominant market share on various routes or city pairs which might lead to anti-competitive practices.
Boeing Company on Monday said the Indian civil aviation sector would require 856 new commercial jet airplanes worth over $72 billion over the next 20 years.
After more than two decades and three attempts, the government has finally sold its flagship national carrier Air India, and it is deja vu for Maharaja as it returned home to its founding father the Tata group. Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy (JRD) Tata founded the airline in 1932 and named it Tata Airlines. In 1946, the aviation division of Tata Sons was listed as Air India, and in 1948, the Air India International was launched with flights to Europe. The international service was among the first public-private partnerships in India, with the government holding 49 per cent, the Tatas keeping 25 per cent and the public owning the rest. In 1953, Air India was nationalised and for the next over four decades it remained the prized possession for India controlling the majority of the domestic airspace.
With terror threats to the civil aviation sector looming large, a Group of Ministers on Tuesday cleared proposals to make the anti-hijacking law more stringent by including death sentence as a punishment. The GoM, headed by Home Minister P Chidambaram, also decided to incorporate a new clause to cover the aspect of conspiracy to hijack an aircraft which does not exist in the Anti-Hijacking Act of 1982.
Some maturity needs to come to the rationalisation of the fares for the sector to succeed.
IndiGo and Paramount Airways managed to register profit during the last fiscal.
"The GoM on the civil aviation sector, headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, is meeting tomorrow as the government has broadly agreed to support Air India in its restructuring process," civil aviation minister Praful Patel said on Tuesday.
Virgin Atlantic Chief Richard Branson is lobbying to enter the Indian domestic aviation sector.
Even low cost carriers IndiGo, Paramount Airways are now in talks to join the Jet Airways-Kingfisher Airlines alliance to cut costs. After Kingfisher took over Air Deccan, fares have gone up steadily. Other low cost carriers have also hiked fares.
After all, the employees did not flock to the Shiv Sena-run union but to Raj Thackeray despite the fact that many of the sacked employees were not Marathis. These non-Maharashtrians, going by the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, were those who came and usurped the local's share in Mumbai's and Maharashtra's economy.
Justifying the coming together of the two airlines, which account for about 60 per cent of the market share, Goyal said that the break-even point for the aviation sector is at 90 per cent capacity utilisation whereas, "We are now operating between 60-70 per cent." Goyal said, "On top of all this, international airlines are dumping capacity in India, lowering their prices knowing we cannot match the competition.... therefore, we have to work together."
Facing flak following frequent flight disruptions over the past three days, national carrier Air India on Tuesday said it was facing shortage of pilots and was trying to overcome the situation by recruiting them from abroad. "It is not as if the airline did not take necessary action. But the growth of the aviation sector has been so explosive that the airline is facing shortage and is taking in expatriate pilots," AI chairman and managing director V Thulasidas said.
