Or else customers will face capacity shortages and high fares.
The ministry will meet domestic carriers next week to discuss how the upper limit in each bucket could be reduced to bring down average airfares, which have been rising in the past few months.
Going 'long' is becoming an overcrowded trade on Dalal Street, and any negative trigger could lead to a sharp correction, warn experts. However, given the strong momentum, particularly in IT stocks, the downside could be protected in the immediate term. "With the Nifty50 surging to new life-time highs, the bulls remain in control. Further upsides are likely once the immediate resistance of 21,492 is taken out.
Jet has been operating on international routes since 2004, being the first private airline to do so in decades, after it launched a Chennai-Colombo service in March that year.
Aiming at attracting Indian travellers to major global and domestic destinations, foreign and Indian carriers are vying with each other by offering discounted tickets.
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.
In an unprecedented show of solidarity on Friday in Mumbai, India's cash-strapped, loss-making private airlines -- including Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways, and others -- have demanded a bailout package from the government or they 'will have to suspend their operations indefinitely'.
Air travel is likely to become costlier from October 14 with all major domestic airlines planning a hike of 10 per cent in line with the spurt in oil prices.
Akasa Air, which took to the skies two months ago, will allow domesticated dogs and cats in cabin as well as cargo from November and will also be starting new routes in the coming weeks. The airline, which is "well capitalised", plans to start international services in the second half of 2023 once it has a fleet of 20 planes. Currently, the carrier has 6 aircraft and will have a total of 18 planes by the end of March next year.
Confirming the airline industry's estimates of a slowdown in the aviation sector, domestic passenger traffic for the calendar year 2008 showed a decline of 5 per cent compared to the previous year. Also, the Kingfisher-Kingfisher Red combine ousted Jet-JetLite as the largest Indian carrier combine in the month of December 2008.
Tata Group-owned AirAsia India, which is in the process of being merged with Air India Express, has taken short-term loans worth Rs 630 crore during the last six months to deal with cash crunch. AirAsia India has been making losses since its first commercial flight on June 12, 2014. Its net loss increased by 42 per cent to Rs 2,178 crore in FY22.
Lease and maintenance rentals of aircraft, salaries to expatriate pilots, parking and landing rates at international airports and jet fuel prices are all dollar-denominated costs.
Tata Sons will increase its stake in budget carrier AirAsia India (AAI) to 83.67 per cent by acquiring an additional 32.67 per cent for $37.66 million from AirAsia Investment Ltd (AAIL), according to a regulatory filing. Currently, AAIL, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Malaysia-based AirAsia, holds 49 per cent stake in the Bengaluru-based AirAsia India. In a regulatory filing to stock exchange Bursa Malaysia, AirAsia said, "The board of directors of AirAsia wishes to announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary AAIL and Tata Sons Pvt Ltd, India, on December 29, entered into a share purchase agreement."
All Indian carriers flew 60.22 lakh (6.02 million) passengers in May compared to 57.10 lakh (5.71 million) in April, while the January-May figure stood at 267.22 lakh (Rs 2.67 million) as against 260 lakh (2.6 million) in the same period last year recording a 2.78 per cent growth, latest official air traffic data showed.
Domestic Airlines have been permitted to fly overseas except to the Gulf region, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said on Wednesday.
Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines said they found it unnecessary to shell out an extra Rs 10 crore for the new terminal, especially since they would have to shift to the new integrated terminal -- T3 -- in less than a year. T3, when it begins functioning in March 2010, will be an integrated terminal for all operators. Kingfisher, Kingfisher Red and IndiGo have already started operations from the new T1D terminal, while Jet Airways, JetLite and SpiceJet are yet to shift.
After Air India and Jet slashed ticket prices, low-cost carriers respond with 5-20 per cent cuts; likely to spur air travel market's sluggish growth.
Rising crude oil prices and muted passenger traffic in the July-September quarter (second quarter, or Q2) of 2023-24 (FY24) have raised concerns about the profitability of listed aviation players. These two concerns have caused the stock of InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo), the largest player in the sector, to slip by 11 per cent since its highs at the end of July. Nuvama Research expects yields to cool down in the near term due to seasonality, rising crude oil prices, and higher capacity.
With a view to strengthening its presence in tourist circuits, Kingfisher Airlines is all set to introduce direct non-stop flights from Goa to Agra next month, thus becoming the first domestic airline to serve these cities.
With the FIPB giving approval to the Tata-Singapore Airlines joint venture to start a full-service carrier, Tata Group Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata on Friday met Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma.
High taxes on the jet fuel, which goes up as high as 40 per cent in some states, coupled with higher airport charges in the form of user development and airport development fee, which have cascading effect on the air fares, have had a negative impact on the domestic passenger demand in India.
Air India had planned to launch the service in October but had to defer it as two of its cargo aircraft had to be sent for mandatory checks following an advisory from the Federal Aviation Administration, the official said. These aircraft are expected to join the fleet shortly along with one Airbus A310-200 configured freighter next month, the official said.
Indian Airlines has launched an EMI scheme in association with Citibank to target the vacation travellers and the growing segment of credit card holders who prefer to use the deferred payment schemes to purchase goods and services.
Domestic fares on all sectors became costlier by Rs 200 from Friday with the hike in fuel surcharge, imposed by major airlines due to increase in jet fuel prices.
The civil aviation ministry has issued guidelines for scheduled carriers to launch global operations, making it mandatory for them to have at least 20 aircraft, five years of domestic operations and security clearance from the Union home ministry.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Thursday reserved its order on crisis-hit airline Go First's plea seeking voluntary insolvency resolution proceedings and interim moratorium on financial obligations while aircraft lessors vehemently opposed the petition. Amid the airline facing severe financial crunch and cancelling flights, a two-member NCLT bench comprising Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar and Member L N Gupta heard the arguments for and against the petition for nearly four hours. As aircraft lessors opposed the plea, the counsels for Go First said the petition was not a malicious one to avoid payment of dues to its creditors but to save the company.
Ahmedabad airport recorded thrice the number of private chartered/VIP flights in the build-up to the final of the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup as compared to the average four-day period. The airport, which usually operates around 64 chartered flights in a span of four days, is set to handle 205 such flights between November 17 and 20, as celebrities and other VIPs descended to watch the India-Australia match.
The diplomatic rift between India and Maldives, coupled with the suspension of flight bookings on one of India's major travel portals, has sent jitters down the spine of tour operators in the island nation. The Maldivian Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators (MATATO), a forum for travel agents, has stressed that the Indian market is important to the success of tourism in Maldives.
Air-India has no plans to operate on the domestic sector, Minister of state for Civil Aviation Rajiv Pratap Rudy informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
The large scale diversion on the night of January 5-6 was mainly because of these aircraft being operated by pilots not trained on Category-III Instrument Landing System, DGCA sources said.
Currently open access to ATF facilities exists at Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore airports, sources said on the sidelines of the Petrotech 2012 Conference in New Delhi.
Taking a cue from price war in the domestic sector, two foreign carriers - Emirates and Air Asia - have cut fares for Indian travellers so as to beat the March quarter blues.
Air India has been a subject of its passengers' ire this week as more than half of its flights have been delayed, primarily because of an old crew rostering system. Due to the existing system, the airline has not been able to handle the disruption created by cyclone 'Biparjoy' on India's western coast. The sudden grounding of two planes also added to the carrier's woes.
But sources said the airline had already executed a sale and leaseback agreement for old aircraft, adding, "Air India is also looking at similar agreements for brand new aircraft."
On the international air traffic front, Asia-Pacific airlines recorded an increase in demand of 5.5 per cent compared to November 2012.
The base will be used by carriers such as Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Air India, to operate 70-seater ATR aircraft to places such as Bengaluru.
