Petroleum Minister Murli Deora will meet Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and chiefs of airlines and oil companies to discuss a solution for dues of over Rs 2,000 crore that the domestic carriers owe the state-owned oil marketers on fuel sales.
Last year, Air India replaced veg and non-veg sandwiches with veg hot meals on flights
After being hit by a fuel price hike and capacity cut, it may be happy times again for the airline industry this festive season. While Kingfisher is looking at adding at least 15 new flights in the winter season, competitors Jet Airways, SpiceJet, IndiGo and Paramount are adding over 30 new flights together (arrivals and departures); they will do this through a combination of better utilisation of existing aircraft and inducting new fleet.
No-frills carrier AirAsia India on Monday offered rock-bottom fares, starting at as low as Rs 1,299 for domestic flights, as part of the parent AirAsia's global sale offer for a limited period.
On Thursday, all airlines (except for Air India) reduced fares on key domestic routes such as Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Bengaluru, Mumbai-Bengaluru, among others.
For the first time, the country's largest airline IndiGo will soon lease up to four wide-body Boeing 777 planes to cover the shortfall in its international operations, according to officials. The airline said the wet-leasing of "certain aircraft" will be done as an interim measure. IndiGo, which has so far only been operating narrow-body Airbus planes, ATRs and freighters, will now be having wide-body aircraft in its fleet.
On the high costs facing the Indian airline industry, Goyal said the factors included a depreciating rupee against the dollar, escalating jet fuel prices, high taxes and rising infrastructure costs.
'We are cautious only on sub-sectors that have seen massive melt-up during the past six months.'
UK flag carrier British Airways plans to tie up with an Indian domestic carrier in a franchise partnership.
Vistara reported a passenger load factor of 45.4 per cent.
Right from the early days of liberalisation, there have been political controversies surrounding several cases that landed on the FIPB table and which, in turn, have often led to court battles.
Currently, Saudi Arabian Airlines is the main provider of domestic flights in the Kingdom alongside the low-cost carrier Nasair.
Domestic budget carriers SpiceJet, Indigo and GoAir have rolled out another sale offer with fares starting from Rs 1,699 for a limited period on domestic routes.
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.
Starting with a minuscule 0.07 per cent share of the market, Kingfisher soared to 7.7 per cent after 12 months and 10.6 per cent in April this year.
Taking on competition from no-frill carriers, Jet Airways on Saturday launched a week-long sale of seven lakh low-fare domestic air tickets to attract air travellers who could use them to fly from August 10 onwards.
The Industry Ministry is in favour of allowing foreign airlines to invest in domestic carriers, saying it would help the cash-crunch industry to raise equity, an issue that does not find support among many Indian airlines.
Hutch has entered into an agreement with Bangalore-based Flightraja.com, an online travel portal.
InterGlobe Aviation, the operator of India's leading airline IndiGo, delivered a better than expected performance across most parameters in Q2FY24. The company posted its fourth consecutive quarter of net profit of Rs 188 crore. It had reported a loss of Rs 1,583 crore in the same quarter a year ago.
This is the first time domestic players have announced steep cuts.
Private domestic airline, Jet Airways said on Wednesday that it has tied up with travel industry service provider, Amadeus India to provide automated ticketing solutions to travel agents.\n\n\n\n
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.
It may hit Kingfisher, Paramount restructuring.
Budget carrier IndiGo continued to be the largest player with a market share of 46.9 per cent ferrying 54 lakh passengers in March.
Sources said Air India has written to the Delhi police on why there is delay in taking action against the MP.
SpiceJet apologised for the inconvenience caused to the passenger and will also provide a full refund. As the passenger kept waiting in the lavatory, a cabin crew slipped in a note asking the passenger not to panic and that despite trying their best, the door could not be opened.
San Fransisco and New York are touted to be the first destinations.
Air Deccan, the low-cost domestic airline, has planned to increase by December its daily flights from 70 to 100 as well as to secure a part of the "ethnic market" of West Asia in the foreseeable future
With monsoons round the corner, the airlines are busy announcing monsoon offers to woo passengers to travel during the rainy season, which is considered as the lean period for air travel.
Let it gradually pull itself out of international routes and focus on linking remote towns and cities.
Aviation regulator Directorate Genral of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Tuesday issued a show cause notice to Go First for 'multiple mistakes' that led to 55 Delhi flight passengers being left behind in a coach at Bangalore airport on Monday and the budget airline has apologised for the incident, saying it happened due to inadvertent oversight in reconciliation.
Unlikely to happen in less than a year,despite the advantage of the parent airline's base.
The directive from the civil aviation ministry came after the airlines together failed to utilise over 13 per cent of the slots allocated to them last year, official sources said. The domestic carriers have already filed their summer schedules which shows a marginal increase in the number of flights each week -- from 11,048 last year to 11,116 this year.
