Tata Group-owned Air India has placed an order for 840 planes with Airbus and Boeing, including the option to acquire 370 aircraft, with a senior airline official on Thursday saying the order is a "landmark moment" in the Indian aviation history. The announcement by Air India's Chief Commercial and Transformation Officer Nipun Aggarwal comes a day after the airline said it has placed a firm order for 470 aircraft -- 250 from Airbus and 220 from Boeing. In a LinkedIn post, Aggarwal said the airline is humbled by the excitement generated across the world by the airline's aircraft order.
The benchmark National Stock Exchange Nifty has rallied 4 per cent, or 750 points, from this month's low to end at 19,732 on week ending November 17. Technical analysts say the market could consolidate around the current levels as it is nearing the resistance zone. "The near-term uptrend status of the market remains intact, but there is a possibility of some more consolidation or minor weakness for the Nifty in the next one to two sessions.
Two unions representing Air India pilots have asked members not to accept the revised compensation and employment offer, calling the company's proposals "unfair labour practices." They said any coercion on pilots to sign the offer would lead to industrial unrest. The Tata group airline announced on Monday a new salary structure for pilots and cabin crew.
Two full-fledged semiconductor fabrication plants are going to come up in India very soon entailing multi-billion dollar investment besides several chip assembly and packaging units, Minister of Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said. In an interview with PTI, the minister confirmed that the two projects include a $8 billion proposal submitted by Israel-based Tower Semiconductors and the other from Tata Group. "I am happy to share this with you and you are probably the first one I'm sharing this with.
'Sweden removed the inheritance tax because many of the rich were fleeing. For example, the owner of IKEA had migrated out of Sweden'
The Tata Tech IPO will be the first from the Tata group since TCS listed its shares in 2004.
Akasa Air's plane occupancy, or load factor, improved the most among all major carriers in April compared to the last month. Load factor signifies the percentage of seats that the airline has been able to fill in its planes. The Vinay Dube-led carrier, which started commercial flights in August last year, saw its load factor jump by more than 11 per cent in April, according to the Ministry of Civil Aviation's data
... changing seats and in-flight entertainment on its older aircraft.
Tata Group-owned AirAsia India, which is in the process of being merged with Air India Express, has taken short-term loans worth Rs 630 crore during the last six months to deal with cash crunch. AirAsia India has been making losses since its first commercial flight on June 12, 2014. Its net loss increased by 42 per cent to Rs 2,178 crore in FY22.
An increased brand fee paid by India-listed Vedanta, apart from record dividend, has helped Vedanta Resources (VRL) - the London-based holding company of Vedanta Group - to repay part of its debt. Vedanta paid a brand fee of Rs 2,632 crore ($325 million) for 2022-23 (FY23), according to Nomura report. This was after the Anil Agarwal-owned holding company raised the brand fee to 2 per cent of the turnover for its Indian businesses in 2021.
Tata Group-owned Titan, which has agreed to purchase founder Mithun Sacheti's stake in CaratLane for Rs 4,621 crore, is planning to buy employee stock options (Esops) of the jewellery retailer's employees for around Rs 350 crore. This will take Titan's ownership in the company to 100 per cent. CaratLane reportedly has around 1,500 employees, most of whom do not own shares in the company.
Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy on Thursday called out "fake news items", which claimed he endorsed automated trading applications and warned the public not to fall for such fraudulent claims. He also slammed "fake interviews" that used "deepfake pictures and videos" of him. In a series of posts on X, Murthy drew the attention of the public to false content being put out by malicious sites and products or services being sold fraudulently using his name and urged people to report any such instances to the concerned regulatory authorities.
Asia's most prestigious marathon was held after three years and Mumbaikars made most of a rare opportunity to run around iconic city landmarks like the Queen's Necklace at Marine Drive and the Rajiv Gandhi Bandra-Worli Sea Link on a chilly Sunday morning.
While about 8,000 people are in the long list of invitees, the select list features 506 A-listers, including prominent politicians, leading industrialists, top film stars, sportspersons, diplomats, judges and high priests.
Diwali fireworks are expected to continue on Dalal Street next week, with four companies collectively seeking to mobilise over Rs 6,600 crore through initial public offerings (IPOs). In terms of the amount raised, this is poised to be the busiest week of calendar year 2023. Tata Technologies (Tata Tech), a subsidiary of Tata Motors, could lead the charge with an IPO projected to be over Rs 2,900 crore. This will mark the first maiden share sale by a Tata Group firm in nearly two decades.
The toughest part is to tackle human behaviour. On the Atal Setu, says Indrajit Gupta, I chose to drive at a consistent speed of 80 kmph in the middle lane. Vehicles on the right lane were clipping along at 150 kmph, way over the maximum permissible limit of 100 kmph. On occasion, I had to slow down or dodge vehicles suddenly pulling into the middle lane from the side.
The Tata Group-owned Air India has decided to procure its maiden batch of wide-bodied A350 aircraft of Airbus and the first plane is likely to be delivered to the airline by March 2023, sources have said.
Tata Group is set to become India's first homegrown iPhone maker after Taiwan's Wistron Group agreed to sell a plant in Bengaluru to India's largest conglomerate. Wistron's board approved the sale of Wistron InfoComm Manufacturing (India) Private Ltd to Tata Electronics for $125 million, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer said in a statement on Friday. The unit operates an iPhone assembly plant near Bengaluru.
Air India on Monday announced a new compensation structure for its pilots and cabin crew, with a guaranteed flying allowance of 40 hours per month for both categories of staff. While the flying allowance has been doubled for pilots, it has been introduced for flight attendants as part of the new compensation structure. Pilots will earn an additional amount as a reward based on the number of years of service with the airline and get an allowance while undergoing training for command or conversion to another aircraft type.
Air India Express and AirAsia India have moved to a unified reservation system, whereby passengers can make bookings for both airlines through an integrated website. The move is part of the ongoing process of merging AirAsia India with Air India Express. The combined entity will focus on leisure-oriented and price-sensitive markets.
Tata group-owned Air India has issued new guidelines on grooming for its male and female cabin crew, including barring them from sporting black and religious thread on the wrist, neck and ankle. Among others, the airline has told the crew that they should not have grey hair and must be regularly coloured in natural shade. "Religious rings with coloured stones and pearls, nose-pins and neck jewellery" along with thumb rings are not allowed.
'We do not see people getting reduced, but because of automation, we will do more work.'
Tata Group-owned Air India has extended the deadline for non-flying staff to apply for the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) till May 31. The deadline for applying for the VRS, which was announced in April, ended on April 30. "Last date to apply for voluntary retirement for all the eligible employees has been extended till May 31," Air India Chief Human Resources Officer Suresh Dutt Tripathi said in an internal communication on Monday.
The objective of the council is to provide strategic and operational support to the group chairman.
A four-member Delhi police team on Friday afternoon landed in Mumbai in search of the man, who had allegedly urinated on his female co-passenger on an Air India (AI) flight on November 26 last year, but found his home here locked, an official said.
India's domestic air passenger traffic nearly doubled to 1.25 crore in January compared to 64.08 lakh recorded in the year-ago period, according to official data released on Monday. In January, IndiGo saw its domestic market share decline for the fifth consecutive month at 54.6 per cent. It carried 68.47 lakh passengers last month.
'Tata Group is excited to work together to make Air India the airline of choice in terms of passenger comfort and service'. This is an audio message from Ratan Tata played onboard some Air India flights. Tata Group completed the takeover of the loss-making Air India on January 27.
Pilots' bodies at Tata Group-owned Air India have accused the airline management of making unilaterally "rapid" and "regressive" changes in the service conditions of pilots. In a letter to Air India Chief Human Resources Officer Suresh Dutt Tripathi on Tuesday, Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) and Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) also stated that "all unilateral violations of their rights and service agreements are creating industrial unrest and shattering employee confidence in the current management". The communication comes amid Air India reducing drastically the annual limit of privilege leave accumulation to 60 days from 300 days earlier, as per a source.
India is well positioned to continue to be the fastest-growing major economy next year, which may mark the lowest global growth since the millennium began barring the pandemic and the global financial crisis, according to Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran. In his New Year message to around 9.35 lakh employees of the Tata Group, he said increasing consumption, consumer confidence and investment will support India's growth story although the global environment has several risk factors, including the energy crisis in Europe, the battle to contain inflation to avoid recession, and ongoing geopolitical conflicts. "Post-pandemic, India opened up, and we have returned to living our daily lives normally, in a year that saw the nation turn 75 years old.
Following the incident at little past 1700 hours, both runways at the airport were shut for a brief period, and one of the runways resumed operations at around 1847 hours, the officials said.
Airbus on Tuesday said it will deliver the first A350 aircraft to Air India by the end of this year and that the deal with the airline also marks the European aviation major's "emphatic return" to the wide-body segment in India, which is the fastest growing aviation market. As it looks to expand the fleet as well as operations, Tata Group-owned Air India on Tuesday announced that it will buy 250 planes from Airbus -- 210 from the A320 neo family and 40 A350. Remi Maillard, president and managing director of Airbus India and South Asia, said the company was very proud that the Tata Group has chosen A350 and A320 planes for Air India, adding that the magnitude of the order shows the appetite for growth in the Indian aviation industry, which is the fastest growing aviation market.
In a major victory for Tatas, an arbitral tribunal has awarded Tata Motors a compensation of over Rs 766 crore for the losses incurred because of protests by Trinamool Congress that stalled its small car project at Singur in West Bengal. The tribunal asked the West Bengal government to pay Tata Motors the compensation, along with interest, according to a stock exchange filing by the Mumbai-based auto major on Monday. The company stated that the arbitral tribunal has asked the West Bengal Industrial Development Corp (WBIDC) to pay the company Rs 766 crore compensation, in connection with losses incurred on its manufacturing site in Singur.
Full service carrier Vistara expects to add a total of 10 planes as well as hire more than 1,000 people in the current financial year and has shelved plans to fly to the US, according to a top executive. Currently, Vistara, which is set to be merged with Air India, has a fleet of 61 aircraft and a staff strength of over 5,200. During an interaction in Istanbul this week, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan said there has been a ready pool of talent, especially pilots and cabin crew members, with the collapse of Go First.
India's leading capital goods and engineering firms are in the midst of one of their busiest seasons, with the combined orderbook surging past Rs 8 trillion in value. As on September 30, 2023, 13 of India's top 15 listed capital goods and engineering firms, for which data for the September 2023 quarter was available, had a total orderbook worth Rs 8.45 trillion - a number unseen at least since 2018-19. "This intuitively looks like an all-time high factoring in inflation," said Anupama Arora, a senior independent analyst who tracks the capital goods sector.
With general elections on the horizon, the government's privatisation bandwagon has almost but stalled as a government wary of being accused of selling family silver opts for minority stake sales on stock exchanges over outright privatisation. The result -- the divestment target for current fiscal year is again likely to be missed. Big ticket privatisation plans such as that of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) and CONCOR are already on the backburner and analysts feel meaningful privatisation can happen only after April/May general elections.
Tata Group chief N Chandrasekaran on Thursday reached out to employees of Air India asking them to work together to build the airline that the country needs, while asserting that the "golden age" of the carrier lies ahead. In a welcome letter to the employees of Air India, after the Tata Group took over the management and control of the airline, Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, reflected on the airline's "brilliant past" but said the entire nation is now waiting to see what "we will achieve together". "From the day of the announcement (of Tatas winning the bid), one word has been on everyone's lips: Homecoming.
Air India on Tuesday signed agreements with Airbus and Boeing for acquiring 470 planes for an estimated $70 billion at list prices. The Tata Group-owned airline had announced that it will buy 470 aircraft, including wide-body planes, in February this year. The "firm orders include 34 A350-1000, 6 A350-900, 20 Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 10 Boeing 777X widebody aircraft, as well as 140 Airbus A320neo, 70 Airbus A321neo and 190 Boeing 737MAX narrow-body aircraft," the airline said in a release.
A consortium of lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI) has agreed to provide loans to Tata Group for the smooth operations of loss-making Air India. Tata Group, which won the bid to acquire the national carrier along with Air India Express and 50 per cent stake in AISATS in October last year, is expected to formally takeover the airline on Thursday. Sources said the SBI-led consortium has agreed to grant both term loans and working capital loans depending on the airline's requirements. All large lenders, including Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, and Union Bank of India, are part of the consortium, they added.
All the global transitions are working in India's favour, giving it the potential to become a force in today's uncertain world, but one of the country's biggest challenges is inclusive growth, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Monday. In his address at the JRD Tata Oration, the head of the Tata group also asserted that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here to stay and it will be beneficial if India prepares for it. Post the cold war era of relative stability and prosperity, the world appears to have given way to unpredictable conflicts and economic uncertainty, he said, adding that the pandemic resulted in supply chain shocks of gigantic proportion.
Indian carriers transported 12.8 million domestic passengers in March 2023, a year-on-year growth of 21.41 per cent. India's largest carrier IndiGo shored up its domestic market share from 53.8 per cent in Q4 of FY22 to 55.7 per cent in Q4 of FY23, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data released on Monday.