IndiGo on Monday said that around 30 aircraft are grounded due to "supply chain disruptions" and the country's largest airline is evaluating wet leasing of planes and other options to boost operations. At the end of September, the carrier -- also the world's seventh largest in terms of daily departures -- had 279 aircraft in its fleet. It operates more than 1,600 daily flights and currently flies to 100 destinations, including 26 international ones.
IndiGo has restored annual increments for more than 4,500 pilots as a financial turnaround helped the airline make a profit in Q3 FY23 after three quarters of loss. An email from the airline's management last week informed pilots of the restoration from April. "The component of annual increment for Indian captains (Rs 10,000 per month) and Indian first officers (Rs 5,000 per month) on the Airbus and ATR fleet which was stopped due to Covid will restart from April 1, 2023," the airline's senior vice president (flight operations) Ashim Mitra said in the staff email.
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.
Responding to that, Rama Rao suggested the airlines recruit more staff who can speak the local language like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada on regional routes.
'My one recommendation would be to first quell the violence and then encourage dialogue and build the trust among the different communities.' 'This is not easy but necessary, for violence cannot be the way forward.'
Some aircraft technicians at IndiGo are on sick leave since Friday demanding a revision in salaries. The protest comes days after the airline partially restored salaries of its pilots and cabin crew and made changes to its human resource (HR) policies. Some technicians in Hyderabad reported sick on Friday night while those from other bases skipped work on Sunday demanding a revision in salary, an industry source said.
The flight was operating from Delhi to Doha in Qatar and was diverted to Karachi in Pakistan.
India is the third-largest domestic airline market in the world, up from number five position a decade ago, according to analysis based on OAG data. The data shows India's domestic airline capacity doubling in a decade from 7.9 million in April 2014 to 15.5 million in April 2024. In reaching the third slot, India has replaced Brazil (pushed to fourth place with 9.7 million) and Indonesia (relegated to fifth in the rankings with 9.2 million).
Earlier in the day, an IndiGo A320 passenger aircraft landed successfully at 1.32 pm at runway 08/26 of the under-construction Navi Mumbai International Airport, paving the way for the Navi Mumbai International Airport Ltd (NMIAL) to seek an aerodrome licence from the aviation safety regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to start commercial flight services.
Police in Maharashtra's Nagpur have identified a 35-year-old man from Gondia in the state as the person behind a spate of hoax bomb threats that triggered panic, caused flight delays and led to increased security at airports and other establishments, an official said.
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.
The DGCA has derostered the Air Traffic Controller (ATC) who was on duty at the time of the incident on Saturday, while IndiGo has initiated a probe into the matter
The incident took place on Thursday when the aircraft was taxing out for take off with 98 passengers on board and the flight was cancelled, it said.
The minister's remarks come against the backdrop of Surya, the ruling BJP's Bengaluru South MP, facing flak from Congress over the incident, which happened on December 10 last year at Chennai airport.
IndiGo barred a specially-abled child from boarding a flight as he was in "a state of panic"
Cyclone Fengal expected to make landfall near Puducherry.
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.
IndiGo's management is of the opinion that Saturday's flight delays caused by sick leaves taken by many in the cabin crew are just an aberration. The airline's on-time performance nosedived to 45 per cent on Saturday as a large part of the cabin crew reported sick to participate in Air India's recruitment process. Privately, Air India executives denied holding interviews on Saturday and the airline did not issue any statement.
The threats via microblogging platform X came a day after three international flights originating from Mumbai received bomb threats, causing trouble to hundreds of passengers and airline crew.
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.
Opposition Congress targeted Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya, amid reports that the passenger, who accidentally opened the emergency exit of the plane was the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha chief.
'A passenger was deplaned by the police at the Delhi airport from Raipur-bound flight 6E 204. Some other passengers have also decided to deboard on their own accord,' it added.
Nivetha Thomas's style choices are chic, easy-to-wear and she absolutely loves desi attire.
'We don't give any guidance about profitability. We have internal targets but we don't discuss them publicly.'
A video clip of the heated exchange onboard the flight on December 16 was shared on social media on Wednesday.
Aviation regulator DGCA has allowed IndiGo to wet lease wide-body Boeing planes from Turkish Airlines for up to six months and has rejected the domestic carrier's request for leasing the aircraft for up to two years, according to sources. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) turned down the request of the country's largest airline to wet lease the aircraft for a longer period, citing that the move could become diversion of traffic rights in collusion with a strong foreign carrier that will mainly feed the latter's hub abroad with more passengers from India, the sources said. IndiGo, which currently has only narrow-body planes in its fleet, decided to lease wide-body aircraft to operate more flights on international routes to meet rising demand.
Airline systems across airports, which were impacted due to a global IT outage on Friday, have started working normally, and all issues are likely to be resolved by noon on Saturday, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said. The ministry is constantly monitoring the operations at airports and airlines to ensure travel readjustments and refunds are taken care of, he added.
The airline demanded more than a thousand rupees for him to carry 41 inch hockey stick
The number of domestic air travelers in India grew 2.42 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in April, reaching 13.2 million, according to data by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Tuesday.
Passenger traffic to Lakshadweep more than doubled from April to June this year.
Cyclonic storm Fengal has commenced making landfall close to Puducherry and it may approximately take 4 hours for it to cross the coast completely, an India Meteorological Department (IMD) official said. The process of the cyclone's landfall commenced at about 5.30 pm on November 30. The IMD said the forward sector of spiral bands associated with the cyclone has entered into the land and is likely to move west-southwestwards and cross north Tamil Nadu-Puducherry coasts between Karaikal and Mahabalipuram close to Puducherry as a cyclonic storm with a wind speed of 70-80 kmph gusting to 90 kmph during next 3 to 4 hours.
Airports across the country witnessed chaotic scenes on Friday after dozens of flights were either delayed or cancelled after a widespread global computer outage that also hit operations like cash withdrawal at some banks, and impacted functioning of some brokerages. Globally, the Microsoft cloud outage led to US airlines cancelling flights, but the tech giant later reportedly said its cloud services outage in the Central US region has been resolved.
The civil aviation ministry on Friday asked airlines to ensure that there is no abnormal surge in airfares for flights to and from the national capital amid suspension of operations at Delhi airport's Terminal 1 following the roof collapse incident.
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 flight, which was scheduled to depart at 8.20 pm, had to be grounded following the hoax threat, they said.
NCPCR chairperson Priyank Kanoongo also asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to initiate an inquiry in the matter and take necessary action against the airline and its manager.
IndiGo had the best on-time performance (OTP) of 95.4 per cent at four metro airports in February, while Go First secured the number two position with 94.1 per cent in the same month, according to data released by aviation regulator DGCA. Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai were the four airports where Indigo had the best OTP, the data released on Monday said. In January, the situation was inverse as Go First had logged the best OTP of 94.5 per cent at the four airports while IndiGo was at number two with 93.9 per cent OTP.
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.
A Bengaluru-bound A320 ceo aircraft, carrying 184 people, aborted takeoff at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi due to fire in one of its engines Friday night.
The country's largest domestic budget carrier IndiGo on Wednesday announced the appointment of Pieter Elbers as its chief executive officer, replacing incumbent Ronojoy Dutta. Seventy-one year old Dutta, who came to helm the airline in January 2019, has decided to retire on September 30, after guiding the airline through the turbulent Covid period, IndiGo said in a statement. Elbers' appointment, which is subject to regulatory approvals, will be effective from on or before October 1, it said.
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