In 14 days, more than 350 flights operated by the Indian carriers have received hoax bomb threats. Most of the threats were issued through social media.
Strong crosswinds and heavy rains with thunder and lightning impacted flight operations from 4.05 pm to 4.51 pm, an airport official said.
It is the first airport in the country to have multi-modal connectivity. This includes a linkage to the project via road, rail, and a metro system.
NMIAL is spending close to Rs 18,000 crore to get the airport up and running.
'This festival season, advance airfares for major metros are up 20 to 25 per cent from last year.'
IndiGo's Sharjah-Hyderabad flight was diverted to Karachi as a precaution on Sunday after pilots observed defect in one of the engines, officials of aviation regulator DGCA said.
Mumbaikars woke up to very heavy rainfall on Monday, while the India meteorological department (IMD) issued a 'red' alert, forecasting extremely heavy rains at isolated places in the city and adjoining areas, prompting the civic body to declare a holiday for schools and colleges, officials said.
IndiGo has delivered impressive operating performance in the past six quarters as it navigated cost and capacity challenges. It has managed to mitigate the impact of faulty engine-related groundings. The airline has also managed costs related to grounding, expensive secondary leasing, increasing airport charges, and pilot compensation inflation and delivered stronger yields and spreads.
Nearly 80 domestic and international flights received bomb threats in less than 24 hours that later turned out to be hoaxes, keeping thousands of passengers and security agencies on tenterhooks.
An IndiGo aircraft grazed the wings of an Air India Express plane at the Kolkata airport on Wednesday, leaving the wings of both aircraft damaged, officials said.
A strong dust storm and gusty winds followed by rain hit Delhi-NCR on Friday evening, causing trees to be uprooted in several parts and leading to traffic congestion. Thunderstorms caused power disruptions in several parts of the city, primarily due to trees and branches falling on electricity cables. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued an orange alert, recommending people stay indoors and avoid unnecessary travel.
A 22-year-old youth and a person with disability died, while at least 11 were injured, in separate rain-related incidents in the national capital on Wednesday evening. The incidents occurred amid sudden changes in weather in Delhi, as a rainy storm marked by hail wrecked havoc across the city, throwing traffic out of gear as far as Delhi-Noida, Delhi-Ghaziabad, and Delhi-Gurugram roads and uprooting several trees.
On Wednesday, Surat airport remained operational for an extra one hour waiting for the landing of an Air India Express flight that took off more than an hour late from the national capital.
The country's largest airline IndiGo on Friday saw its profit after tax slide 18.3 per cent to Rs 2,448.8 crore in the three months ended December 2024 due to foreign exchange loss even as revenue jumped on higher capacity and passenger traffic. The carrier, which had a fleet of 437 planes at the end of December, is planning to induct wet leased planes for long range flights and expects the number of grounded aircraft to come down to 40s by the start of next financial year from the current level of 60s.
A 35-year-old man who was allegedly behind a series of hoax bomb threats to airports and railway stations across the country has been arrested after he presented himself before Nagpur Police, an official said on Friday.
The civil aviation ministry reports six aircraft engine shutdown incidents and three May Day calls in India this year. The Air India plane crash investigation is ongoing, with all aspects being examined.
The picture of the baby with the crew members are being widely shared on social media.
As SpiceJet faces heat from the aviation regulator DGCA for multiple flight incidents in the last few weeks, malfunction cases involving planes of IndiGo and Vistara came to light on Wednesday.
Dense fog enveloped Delhi for a second consecutive morning, leading to disruptions in air and rail traffic. Visibility dropped to zero in several areas, causing delays for 81 trains and diversions for 15 flights. The Met office attributed the fog to calm surface winds, and predicted continued dense to very dense fog throughout the day. Meanwhile, the national capital's air quality remained in the 'very poor' category, with an AQI reading of 380 at 9 am.
India has advised its citizens to defer travel to Nepal due to ongoing unrest and anti-government protests. The Ministry of External Affairs has also urged Indian citizens currently in Nepal to exercise caution and avoid public areas.
Civilian flight operations from the 32 airports across northern and western India, including Srinagar and Amritsar, were suspended from May 9 to May 15.
Indian carriers are grappling with severe operational disruptions after Iran launched missile strikes on the US military base in Qatar late Monday. This led to airspace closures for long hours in parts of West Asia. Iran, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait shut down their skies following the attack, forcing airlines to cancel, divert, or delay flights through these vital corridors.
The international cargo operations of two major carriers - IndiGo and Air India Group (Air India and Vistara) - are experiencing opposite trajectories despite both the airlines significantly expanding their international flight offerings over the past year. During the fourth quarter of 2023-24, IndiGo's international non-passenger cargo business declined to 6,848 tonnes. This is an 18.2 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) decrease, according to data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)
The introduction of these new flights would help IndiGo cross 650 flights mark as the it would offer a total of 671 flights per day connecting 39 destinations.
Flights from Delhi or Bengaluru, while they may still fly over Iran, depending on the route, have alternative paths that may take them through Central Asia or northern routes.
'A last-second aborted landing at Mumbai airport left us speechless.'
Of the 48 flights, which are not being operated as part of the curtailed schedule, 42 are of IndiGo and six of GoAir.
The sources said the aircraft was allotted a remote bay C-33 instead of a Contact Stand, an aircraft parking stand that is suitable for walking passengers to and from an aircraft from an allocated boarding gate. This further added to passenger woes and deprived them the opportunity to avail basic facilities like rest rooms and refreshments at the terminal, they added.
According to flight radar, the Indian plane with a ground speed of 454 knots entered north of Lahore at about 7:30 pm on Saturday and returned to India at 8:01 pm, the Dawn newspaper reported.
The Tatas have collectively increased their aggregate airlines seat capacity across domestic and international markets by an impressive 20 per cent, going from 64.03 million in calendar year (CY) 2023 to 76.72 million in the current CY, according to data shared by the group that controls Air India in which Vistara has been merged recently. The Tatas also run Air India Express in which Air Asia India has been merged.
There was no injury to any passenger or crew. The aircraft landed safely at Delhi airport, the official confirmed.
Indian airlines are likely to face additional weekly expenses of Rs 77 crore for international flights operated from north Indian cities as the airspace curbs result in increased fuel consumption and longer flight duration. An analysis of the number of overseas flights and back-of-the-envelope calculations based on increased flight time as well as approximate expenses by PTI showed that the additional monthly operational costs could be over Rs 306 crore.
The flight, which was scheduled to depart at 8.20 pm, had to be grounded following the hoax threat, they said.
The Boeing 787-8 aircraft -- VT-ANB -- was 11.5 years old and had flown for more than 41,000 hours, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Flight services at Mumbai airport were severely impacted on Monday due to low visibility after heavy rains in the city, leading to runway operations being shut for over an hour and approximately 50 flights being cancelled, sources said.
Air India, which operates 72 weekly flights from various cities to Dubai, and IndiGo cancelled their services on Wednesday.
An IndiGo aircraft from Amritsar missed the exit taxiway after landing at the Delhi airport on Sunday morning, following which one of the runways was blocked for little over 15 minutes, impacting flight operations, according to sources.
The DGCA has asked airlines to inspect the fuel switch locking system in their Boeing 787 and 737 planes after a preliminary probe report into the Air India crash found that the switches were cut off before the accident.
IndiGo said in a statement that the passenger on flight 6E 556 was intoxicated and misbehaved with the crew despite multiple warnings.
The flight was operating from Delhi to Doha in Qatar and was diverted to Karachi in Pakistan.
