SpiceJet promoter and chairman Ajay Singh may offload more than 10 per cent stake in the struggling carrier as part of the latest funding round that is expected to close by the end of September, according to sources. The budget carrier -- which is grappling with multiple woes, including financial challenges, legal battles and grounding of aircraft -- is looking to raise money that will help it meet various obligations.
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.
Months of uncertainty due to governance issues, turf wars and internal power struggles are set to end when the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) holds its much-delayed elections on Thursday.
Incumbent Ajay Singh was on Thursday re-elected President of the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) for a third consecutive term after his comprehensive victory over Jaslal Pradhan in the long-overdue polls.
SpiceJet on Thursday said it has settled a $90.8 million dispute with Export Development Canada for a total consideration of $22.5 million, leading to the airline taking ownership of 13 Q400 planes. This resolution will result in savings of $68.3 million (Rs 574 crore), it said.
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.
Cash-strapped domestic carrier Spicejet plans to raise Rs 3,200 crore through QIP, warrants and capital infusion by the promoter, the airline said in a presentation on Friday. The funds will be utilised in taking back the grounded fleet in operations, liability settlement, new fleet induction and other general purposes, Spicejet in the presentations. "Spicejet plan to raise Rs 2,500 crore through QIP and Rs 736 crore through Previous Warrants and promoter infusion, the airline said in an investor presentation," it said in a corporate presentation to investors ahead of its proposed capital infusion.
Cooking oil is often discarded after being used for frying at home or in restaurants. However, a refinery of IndianOil has now won a certification to use the same oil to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), the company chairman Arvinder Singh Sahney said.
Akasa Air's standalone net loss rose 18.7 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to roughly Rs 1,983 crore in 2024-25 (FY25), driven by rising employee costs, aircraft maintenance and airport charges, and a sharp increase in foreign exchange (forex) expenses, sources privy to the development told Business Standard.
'In the inspections, no issues were found with the said locking mechanism.'
Jaipur airport SHO Ral Lal said the ASI called for a female colleague for the security check, but the argument escalated and the SpiceJet employee slapped him.
SpiceJet said the air conditioning in its Delhi to Darbhanga flight "experienced slight inefficiency" during boarding at Delhi Airport
The operations of many global carriers, including Qatar Airways, have also been impacted due to the airspace curbs in the wake of the Middle East tensions.
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.
Civilian flight operations from the 32 airports across northern and western India, including Srinagar and Amritsar, were suspended from May 9 to May 15.
Corporate India is embarking on an ambitious investment drive, with capital expenditure (capex) expected to double to $850 billion over the next five years, according to a report by S&P Global Ratings. Indian power & transmission, airlines, and green hydrogen sectors would spearhead the spending, the report said.
A native of Mandangad in coastal Ratnagiri district, the Songhare family had moved to Mumbai for work and shifted to Dombivli two years ago.
Hundreds of people, including inconsolable family members and friends, gave an emotional farewell to First Officer Clive Kunder, co-pilot of the Air India plane that crashed in Ahmedabad last week, and flight attendant Roshni Songhare whose last rites were held on Thursday.
SpiceJet on Tuesday said it has expressed interest to acquire Go First and plans to submit its offer after carrying out due diligence of the bankrupt carrier. Go First, which stopped flying since May 3 amid financial woes mainly triggered by Pratt & Whitney engine issues, is undergoing an insolvency resolution process.
Crisis-hit SpiceJet plans to hand out pink slips to at least 1,000 employees in the coming days as the airline works to significantly reduce costs and streamline operations of its depleted aircraft fleet, officials said on Monday. Faced with financial woes, legal battles and other headwinds, the no-frills carrier might ask more staff to leave as there is excess manpower now compared to the number of planes in service. A final decision on the quantum of layoffs is expected this week, one of the officials in the know said.
Executives from India's leading airlines are conducting internal meetings to devise alternative routes for their international flights that currently pass through Pakistani airspace.
Restricting air access to foreign carriers by not granting them more bilateral rights is akin to shooting yourself in the foot, as air transport is a wealth multiplier for India's economy, Emirates President Tim Clark said during a press conference held on the sidelines of the annual general meeting of the International Air Transport Association.
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.
More than 300 flights have been cancelled and at least 25 airports, including Srinagar, have been temporarily shut for operations amid restrictions in the wake of the armed forces launching missile attacks on terror targets in Pakistan on Wednesday morning.
'CORSIA has set impossible targets. It tries to limit countries to the emission levels of the number of aircraft that they had in 2020. That has to be opposed.'
SpiceJet's resurgence, once the new funding is in place, has the potential to disrupt the Indian aviation market in 2024 as the airline will bring its grounded aircraft back to service and lease as many planes as possible to be competitively relevant, aviation consultancy firm Capa India said on Thursday. "Although the market for procuring aircraft in 2024 is exceptionally tight, we expect that SpiceJet will bring stored aircraft back into operations, and will wet or dry lease as much capacity as possible, in order to be competitively relevant. "This will have a material impact on the industry structure, and possibly on domestic profitability," Capa India said in its report.
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.
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.
SpiceJet Ltd on Monday said it has hived off its cargo and logistics business SpiceXpress into a separate entity -- SpiceXpress and Logistics Pvt Ltd, from April 1. The move results in a one-time gain of Rs 2,555.77 crore for SpiceJet, substantially reducing its negative net worth, the company said. It also paves the way for SpiceXpress to raise funds independently, SpiceJet said.
Airline stocks have been soaring following a steep decline in crude oil prices and sustained passenger traffic. Analysts have particularly turned bullish on the stocks of InterGlobe Aviation and SpiceJet. On December 20, shares of InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo) hit a record high of Rs 3,009 on the BSE, having surged 43.24 per cent year-to-date (YTD).
The 56-year-old judge, enrolled as an advocate in 1992, was appointed as an additional judge of the Allahabad high court on October 13, 2014 and took oath as a permanent judge of that court on February 1, 2016.
Aviation watchdog DGCA has taken off SpiceJet from its enhanced surveillance regime, a senior official said on Tuesday. The airline, which has been facing multiple headwinds, was placed under enhanced surveillance recently. The senior DGCA official said that in view of the observations made in the past concerning inadequate maintenance and in view of the incidents during the monsoon season last year, SpiceJet was placed under enhanced surveillance.
Boxing Federation of India (BFI) chief Ajay Singh will be up against secretary general Hemanta Kalita, vice-president Rajesh Bhandari, and Kerala State Amateur Boxing Association secretary D Chandralal when the BFI holds its long-awaited elections on March 28.
The Delhi high court has directed SpiceJet to deposit "forthwith" Rs 75 crore that has to be paid to media baron Kalanidhi Maran and his Kal Airways towards interest on an arbitral award of Rs 578 crore. The high court said, admittedly, there is no modification of the February 13, 2023 order passed by the Supreme Court in the case, and hence it needs to be followed. "Since the judgment debtor (SpiceJet) had failed to pay an amount of Rs 75 crores to decree holder (Maran and Kal Airways), hence in terms of para 15 (ii) of the order dated February 13, 2023 of the Supreme Court, there is no other alternative except to call upon the judgment debtors to deposit the entire outstanding amount qua interest forthwith, thus is so directed.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Tuesday questioned the maintainability of the insolvency plea filed against air carrier SpiceJet by one of its operational creditors Willis Lease Finance Corporation. A two-member NCLT bench comprising Members Mahendra Khandelwal and Rahul Prasad Bhatnagar observed that Willis Lease Finance Corporation has withdrawn its insolvency plea for the same dispute in March 2023 and has approached again with a new plea. The bench wanted to know as Willis Lease Finance Corporation, an aircraft lessor, had filed again for a similar cause of action within a few months.
Aviation security regulator BCAS on Wednesday slapped fines totalling Rs 1.80 crore on IndiGo and Mumbai airport operator MIAL over the incident of passengers having food on the airport's apron. The apron is the area around the aircraft where it has finally parked for deboarding.
Oil marketing companies (OMCs), paint manufacturers, tyre producers, and aviation stocks witnessed significant gains as Brent crude oil prices slipped below $70 per barrel. The price drop came after a double blow: The US imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico, including energy imports, and OPEC+ - the group of major oil-producing nations including Russia - announced an output increase of 138,000 barrels per day, the first such hike since 2022.
Shares of Oil marketing companies (OMCs) extended their gains for the fourth consecutive session on Thursday after crude oil prices plunged to six-month lows in the international markets, which boosted investor sentiments. Traders said the OMC stocks gained with crude oil prices hovering below $70 per barrel after OPEC-plus decision to increase output from April, a move which is expected to favour Indian refiners with added marketing margins on retail fuel.
Stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra has once again found himself at the center of a controversy, this time for his comments about Maharashtra's Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Kamra has been a controversial figure for years, with his comedy often targeting politicians and other public figures. This latest incident has led to a backlash from Shinde's supporters, who have vandalized the venue of Kamra's show. Kamra has a history of making controversial remarks, including heckling a TV anchor on a flight and making comments about the judiciary.
Out of the 14 flights, 13 were diverted to Jaipur and 1 to Dehradun, the official said and added that the diversions happened between 8.30 am and 3 pm.