A video clip of the heated exchange onboard the flight on December 16 was shared on social media on Wednesday.
The DGCA conducted the spot checks as there have been many technical malfunction incidents in Indian carriers' planes during the last 45 days.
Any government aid to the airline will ultimately hurt the economy
From croissants to Galouti kebabs and Medu vada, Indian carriers, both low-cost and full-service, are revising their in-flight menus to offer passengers a differentiated fare as competition is heating up amid the boom in air travel with the waning of Covid-19. On Monday, Air India, which was taken over by the Tata Group on January 27, unveiled its new domestic in-flight menu comprising gourmet meals, new appetizers, desserts, and local dishes. Air India's economy class passengers would now be served dishes such as Mushroom cheese omelette, Dry jeera aloo wedges, and Garlic tossed spinach and corn for breakfast, and Vegetable biryani, Malabar chicken curry, and mixed vegetable poriyal for lunch.
Around 1.12 crore domestic passengers travelled by air in December, approximately 6.7 per cent higher than the 1.05 crore who travelled in November, the country's aviation regulator said on Wednesday. Overall, 8.38 crore people travelled on domestic flights in 2021 as compared to 6.3 crore in 2020, showing a jump of 33 per cent, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stated in its monthly statement. IndiGo -- India's largest carrier -- carried 61.41 lakh passengers in December, a 54.8 per cent share of the domestic market, it mentioned.
India's aviation regulator DGCA on Thursday lifted the ban on Boeing 737 Max planes' commercial flight operations after almost two-and-half years. On March 13, 2019, all Boeing 737 Max planes were grounded in India by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) after the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max plane on March 10 near Addis Ababa which had left 157 people, including four Indians, dead. Aircraft manufacturer Boeing has been modifying the 737 Max plane since March 2019 so that various countries' regulators, including the DGCA, permit its passenger flight operations again.
The Delhi high court on Thursday dismissed BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's plea seeking to set aside the Air India divestment process on the allegation that the methodology adopted by the government in the valuation of the national carrier was "arbitrary, illegal and against public interest". The order was passed by a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh. The court said a detailed order will be uploaded. "Dr. Subramanian Swamy, sir we are dismissing this matter...," the bench said.
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.
Kalanithi Maran and another top company official have been summoned as accused by a Delhi court in two tax evasion cases.
Asian Games gold-winning boxer Dingko Singh was on Saturday airlifted from Imphal to New Delhi for his cancer treatment. Dingko's transfer to Delhi by a SpiceJet air ambulance was facilitated by the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) after he missed a scheduled radiation therapy session due to the ongoing coronavirus-forced national lockdown.
The market buzz is that the GoAir promoters are hoping for a valuation that is at least a little more than double its closest rival SpiceJet.
A SpiceJet aircraft had booked a charter flight by a Madurai-based private person for the mid-air marriage ceremony but authorities were not informed regarding the marriage on board.
Tata-owned Air India has launched a Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) for its employees- in the airline's first drive to reduce headcount. The salt-to-steel conglomerate acquired the carrier last year. As of November 2019, the airline had 9,426 permanent employees.
Domestic airlines are preparing to offer lower fares for passengers without check-in bags in a move to improve seat occupancy and market share. IndiGo chief executive officer Ronojoy Dutta indicated the airline's interest to offer zero bag fares in an interaction with Bloomberg. Regulatory caps on fares and capacity related to Covid-19 have prevented IndiGo from taking a decision and the airline is discussing the issue with the government, he said.
Many argue that the airline could achieve its full potential if Nusli Wadia were to run it the way he does Britannia.
Ending its uncomfortable journey in India after eight years, Malaysia-based AirAsia Group on Wednesday said it has exited AirAsia India by selling its remaining 16.67 per cent stake to Tata Group-owned Air India for Rs 155.64 crore. Later in the day, Air India said it has begun the process of creating a single low-cost carrier subsidiary by merging AirAsia India and Air India Express. A working group consisting AirAsia India CEO Sunil Bhaskaran and Air India Express CEO Aloke Singh has been formed for the two carriers' integration, which is expected to take approximately 12 months, it added.
While the number of operational airports in the country will rise to 131, other smaller towns too are seeing a surge in connectivity.
Flight occupancy and fresh bookings have dropped over ten per cent in last few days as individuals and corporates defer trips. International travel is already hit due to a series of visa restrictions.
However, the tender criteria demands that an entity must be eligible to conduct Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations in order to become eligible. Currently, no drone companies are eligible to do BVLOS operations, reports Arindam Majumder.
SpiceJet, Air India Express and GoAir have been involved in three, two and one such incidents, respectively, in the past few days, prompting the DGCA to take action against the 12 pilots.
Despite partial restoration of salaries, pilots across airlines remain dissatisfied, throwing challenges for managers.
Ms Usha may soon discover that winning four gold medals at the Asian Games and qualifying for the Los Angeles Olympics is a walk in the park compared with the challenges of stabilising governance at the IOA, observes Kanika Datta.
Grounded carrier Jet Airways on Friday announced the appointment of Sanjiv Kapoor as the chief executive officer. His appointment to the post comes days after the airline brought in former Sri Lankan Airlines CEO Vipula Gunatileka as the chief financial officer. Kapoor, who is currently the president of Oberoi Hotels and Resorts, has been associated with budget carriers SpiceJet and GoAir as well as with full-service carrier Vistara in various capacities in the past.
As air travel gathered steam in financial year 2021-22 (FY22) after being restricted the previous year, fewer passengers were affected by flight cancellations. Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) figures show that there were 40 per cent fewer flyers in FY22 than in FY20, but 60 per cent fewer passengers were impacted by cancellations, and 80 per cent fewer passengers were denied boarding. FY20 was the last financial year when India's booming aviation industry carried out full-scale operations before being completely grounded for a couple of months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
To mark the completion of administering of 100 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses, the largest khadi tricolour in the country, weighing around 1,400 kg, will be displayed at the Red Fort on Thursday, official sources said.
The load factor of six major domestic airlines--IndiGo, SpiceJet, Air India, GoAir, Vistara and AirAsia India -- stood between 70 per cent and 64.9 per cent in January.
Two issues dog the sale of the national carrier. One is the $2 billion bank guarantee the winning bidder will need to furnish. The other is the nearly 5000 lawsuits filed against Air India, many of them overseas. Anjuli Bhargava reports.
Jet Airways will operate flights with female cabin crew members in its start-up phase and hire male cabin crew members once it reaches a certain operational scale, the airline said on Sunday. It will be following the footsteps of Vistara, which had started hiring male cabin crew in March 2018, approximately three years after it was launched. Jet Airways, which has not flown since April 17, 2019, is currently in the process of re-launching operations under its new promoters Jalan-Kalrock Consortium. Aviation veteran Sanjiv Kapoor took charge as the chief executive officer of the airline on April 4.
Management and leadership changes, in addition to synchronising operations between all its airlines, are showing visible results for Air India. Data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) show that there has been a marked improvement in key operational parameters of Air India after the Tata group took complete control of the national airline in January. One of the most dramatic improvements has been noticed in Air India's passenger load factor (PLF) - a crucial metric of capacity utilisation of an airline's fleet that shows how many seats it has been able to fill on every flight.
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.
The number of serious incidents has more than doubled in the last seven years.
Aircraft lease rentals are fixed costs and account for around 15 per cent of an airline's expense and since these are paid in dollars are also subject to currency fluctuations.
Announcements will be made on airplanes, ships, metros and at railway stations when India achieves its target of 100 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses while private carrier Spicejet will wrap its planes with posters of this milestone carrying images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and health workers, health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Thursday.
'The recent price hike would only be beneficial if the airlines continue to operate at 80 per cent airline capacity. An increase towards 90 or 100 per cent airline capacity would again add pressure to the fares as demand remains muted. Also, we are in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year which is a seasonally weaker quarter,' says an analyst.
IndiGo maintained its lead position with 49 per cent share of the domestic passenger market in May. SpiceJet's market share increased to 14.8 per cent in May, giving it the number two spot. The market share of Air India, GoAir, AirAsia and Vistara were 13.5 per cent, 11.1 per cent, 6.3 per cent and 4.7 per cent, respectively, in May this year.
Ratan Tata on Friday welcomed the government accepting Tata Sons' bid of Rs 18,000 crore for the takeover of Air India, saying the airline provides a very strong market opportunity to the group even through it will take considerable effort to rebuild the debt-laden carrier. "Welcome Back, Air India," he said. "The Tata Group winning the bid for Air India is great news," he said in a statement.
SpiceJet is the only Boeing 737 MAX operator in India, with 13 aircraft of the type in its fleet and a total of 205 planes on order.
Heavy rains and thunderstorm on Monday brought Delhiites a much-needed respite from the lengthy spell of sweltering heat, but it also affected road and air traffic during the morning rush hours, and brought down houses and trees, leaving at least eight people injured.
Tata group-owned AirAsia India's inability to get approval for international flights is hurting UDAN, the Indian government's regional air connectivity project that also aims to link cities in Northeast India and Odisha to places abroad. Sources said the civil aviation ministry is waiting for the low-cost airline to come under the full ownership of Tata Sons and become part of Air India, the former state-owned carrier now owned by the private conglomerate, before allowing it to operate international flights. Tata owns 84 per cent stake in AirAsia India and it is understood that the group will complete the process of buying rest of the stake by July's end.
Over 600 slots at three major airports - Heathrow, Dubai and New York's JFK International - could be at stake.
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