The aviation regulator DGCA said on Friday that it was extending the suspension of scheduled international passenger flights in the country till July 31 but added that some international scheduled services on selected routes may be permitted on a case to case basis. Scheduled international passenger flights were suspended in India on March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Wadia group-owned Go First will temporarily suspend flights on May 3 and 4 amid severe fund crunch, the airline's chief Kaushik Khona said on Tuesday.
The government has decided to restart scheduled international flight services from March 27 after a two years hiatus due to COVID-19, according to civil aviation ministry officials.
The civil aviation ministry had last week suspended all flights between the European country and India from December 23 to December 31 as a mutated variant of the coronavirus was detected there.
China's state-run Sichuan Airlines has suspended all its cargo flights to India for 15 days, causing major disruption to private traders' efforts to procure the much-needed oxygen concentrators and other medical supplies from the country despite Beijing reiterating its readiness to help India to deal with the latest surge of COVID-19 cases.
Notwithstanding the sweltering heat engulfing major cities, travellers can find solace in the steady airfares to popular summer destinations like Srinagar, Bagdogra, and Kochi. According to airline executives, capacity increases and moderate demand have kept spot airfares from scorching cities like Delhi on a par with the same period last year.
Of late, Bollywood is showing a lot of interest in planes, the commercial and fighter varieties. And audiences seem to love it too!
The favourites to replace Erik ten Hag, who was sacked as Manchester United manager on Monday.
In a circular issued on Tuesday, Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation said it was "suspending travel to and from the following countries: (India, Brazil and Argentina) including any person who has been in any of the mentioned countries above in the last 14 days prior to their arrival to the Kingdom".
The Union health ministry said 6 persons who returned to India from the UK have tested positive for the new strain of the virus.
A number of countries like Canada, Turkey, Belgium, Italy and Israel have banned flights from the UK as the British government warned that the potent new strain of the virus was "out of control" and imposed a stringent new stay-at-home lockdown from Sunday.
"A passenger, who had a COVID-positive certificate dated September 2, travelled on Air India Express' Jaipur-Dubai flight on September 4. A similar incident had happened with a passenger on one of the airline's other Dubai flights previously," said one of the officials.
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.
Indian and UK carriers will each be operating 15 flights per week during the aforementioned period to and from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad only, he said.
In addition to this, two more repatriation flights -- one each from Singapore and Manila ( Philippines) -- are expected to arrive in Mumbai on Sunday.
"Apart from the current situation (prevailing tension between India-Pakistan), the suspension of the service might be due to commercial reasons as well," an official said.
The aviation regulator slapped fines amounting to Rs 2.75 crore on Indian airlines in 2023, marking a 39 per cent rise in financial penalties from Rs 1.97 crore in 2022. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said it imposed fines on domestic carriers such as Air India, IndiGo, AirAsia India and SpiceJet for issues related to non-compliance in 2023. The regulator also carried out a record number of 5,745 surveillance activities in the year to ensure compliance by airlines, aerodrome operators, and aviation personnel among others.
The monsoon spelt mayhem in several parts of the country on Monday, particularly Mumbai where local train services and flight operations were hit and everyday life disrupted as well as Assam that was grappling with floods yet again.
Suspension, internal mudslinging and factionalism overshadowed some stellar performances by Indian archers as the sport went from bad to worse with just a few months left for Tokyo Olympics in an eventful 2019. The biggest blow to Indian archery came in August when World Archery suspended the national federation after two warring groups conducted parallel elections in Delhi and Chandigarh in a clear defiance of the international body's guidelines.
Dispute arose as Indian carriers objected to Emirates flying passengers beyond Dubai, and Dubai authorities complained that Indian airlines have been flying more flights than allocated to its carriers.
He was grounded by the airline on Sunday after he tested positive for alcohol in two breath analyser (BA) tests before he was to operate Air India's New Delhi-London flight.
The Athletics Federation of India is trying to book an alternate flight available to any European city en route to Silesia in Poland
Airlines such as Vistara and SpiceJet warned their passengers on Twitter that due to the bad weather in Delhi, their flights might get affected.
Eight people were killed and over 60 injured on Monday when a huge iron hoarding collapsed on a petrol pump in Ghatkopar area of Mumbai amid rain and gusty wind, while several others are feared trapped, officials said.
The airline has closed reservation for flights to Silchar, Imphal, Aizawl, Jorhat in northeastern states from mid-February. Reservation has also been closed for flights to Madurai, Visakhapatnam, Raipur, Muscat and Sharjah.
The first flight to land at the Delhi airport from London on Friday was Air India's AI112 that had 256 passengers in it, said Gauri Agarwal, founder of the Genestrings Diagnostic Center.
The decision was taken after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the lockdown across the country will be extended till May 3 to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
As major airports like Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad have a severe cap on the number of fights they can handle, cancellations continued on Tuesday.
The travel ban will come into effect from 11.59 pm on Saturday, April 24, and is subject to review after 10 days.
The United States has described as "discriminatory and restrictive" the Indian government not allowing American carriers operate chartered flights on Indo-US routes even though Air India was doing so under the Vande Bharat Mission.
From a surge in airfares to rattled aircraft lessors to thousands of employees staring at uncertainty, it has been a month of continued turbulence since cash-strapped Go First suspended flights from May 3. As the government and other stakeholders hope that Go First restarts operations at the earliest, plans are being worked out for the budget airline's revival. A section of Go First staff are optimistic about restarting of operations, another section are pessimistic about the airline's future course considering what had happened to erstwhile Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways, according to employees who spoke to PTI.
A senior DGCA official said 23,403 departures per week have been finalised, covering 103 airports, which is 1.2 per cent higher than the 23,117 operated during the previous winter schedule.
While the airline is accommodating passengers on available flights, this is resulting in extending travel time and detour for customers.
The application came up for hearing on Thursday before a division bench of justices Tejinder Singh Dhindsa and Lalit Batra through video conferencing during which the counsel for Jammu and Kashmir R S Cheema requested for a new date that was granted.
Citing various aspects, the forum has appealed to the DGCA to "withdraw the harsh punishment and suspension of the PIC". it said.
However, the Maldives government has no intention of removing the doctors from India at Senahiya, a media report said.
Nearly two months after the urination incident on its New York-New Delhi flight, Air India on Tuesday said it has closed the internal probe into the case and will assist the flight's pilot-in-command with an appeal against the suspension of his licence by DGCA as the airline deems the action as "excessive".
Besides, another 350-odd flights -- both arriving and departing -- were delayed between 28-51 minutes (till 7 pm), as per the live flight tracking website Flightradar24.
Kerala top the list of state-wise break-up of repatriation requests with 25,246, followed by 6,617 from Tamil Nadu and 4,341 from Maharashtra. A total of 3,715 people from Uttar Pradesh requested for evacuation, 3,320 from Rajasthan, 2,796 from Telangana and, 2,786 from Karnataka.
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