As Prabhakaran was leaving his house, Rajiv Gandhi called his son Rahul and asked him to fetch his (Gandhi's) bulletproof jacket. He put the jacket on Prabhakaran's back and remarked with his usual charming smile: "Take care of yourself."
'There is a sense of achievement but it has come at a great cost.'
Air India's flying crew, ground and security staff will soon sport new uniforms designed by fashion designer Manish Malhotra as the Tata Group-owned airline embraces a new global brand identity. As Air India pursues a revival and modernisation plan, the new uniforms are expected to be introduced for the frontline staff by the end of this year and are likely to coincide with the induction of the airline's first wide-body A350 aircraft into its fleet. Malhotra -- whose career spans more than 30 years as a couturier, costume stylist, and entrepreneur -- and his team have started meeting Air India's frontline staff, conducting discussions and fitting sessions with them to better understand their specialised needs, the airline said in a release on Thursday.
A MiG-21 Bison of the IAF, piloted by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was downed during a dogfight between India and Pakistan sides on February 27 after the Balakot airstrike
Over the past six months, the airline's fleet has shrunk from 58 aircraft to 48 planes with the carrier returning 10 Boeing 737s to lessors.
Defence sources said the pilot spotted fire during the take off roll, aborted the take off and carried out safe exit.
The data of the director general of civil aviation, which publishes monthly data on registration, deregistration and change of ownership of the aircraft, showed that in December 2008, Kingfisher returned six Airbus and one ATR aircraft to the lessors.
The plane that took off from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates carrying 303 Indian passengers, including many minors, was grounded at the Chalons-Vatry airport in Marne on Thursday.
The Delhi-based airline currently has 13 Airbus A320 aircraft in the fleet and it plans to take another seven (A320 Neo) planes by June 2018.
Aviation Working Group (AWG), a global aviation leasing body comprising major planemakers and lessors, on Monday further downgraded India as lessors have not been able to repossess their planes from Go First more than four months after the airline filed for insolvency. The leasing cost stands as a prominent expense for Indian airlines. With AWG's downgrade, it is likely that lessors will increase the aircraft leasing rates for Indian carriers.
A deep depression over the Bay of Bengal intensified into a cyclonic storm, named Remal, on Saturday evening and is likely to turn severe before making landfall between the coasts of West Bengal and Bangladesh on Sunday midnight, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
Zudio was the standout performer as it tapped into the pentup demand in small-town India, at a pace never seen before, notes Indrajit Gupta, co-founder and director, Founding Fuel.
'If a drone can't fly airspace without the DGCA knowing about it, how did such a big plane get airborne?' 'The DGCA knows this aircraft had undergone major repairs. Now, the question is who allowed it.' 'The DGCA cannot come out of this.'
According to officials, the Indian Navy has opened an investigation into whether the drone used to attack the vessel was launched from long range or from a nearby vessel.
The pilot made all efforts to avert human casualties and crash-landed the plane on the outskirts of a village, Prakash said.
Faced with the prospect of $1.5 billion losses owing to a slowdown in passenger traffic and high aviation turbine fuel (ATF) costs, airline companies are cancelling or cutting deliveries of new aircraft due this year or sub-leasing them to other carriers globally.
As severe cyclonic storm 'Remal' initiated its landfall process between the coasts of Bangladesh and adjoining West Bengal on Sunday evening, authorities took swift action, evacuating over 1 lakh people from vulnerable areas of the state to safety.
The IAF had carried out 517 sorties of Fixed Wing aircraft, airlifting 3,787 people and 1,350 tonnes of load, and 634 sorties of helicopters, winching 584 people and airlifting 247 tonnes of load.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Tuesday suspended Air India's Boeing simulator facility in Mumbai after finding certain alleged lapses during a spot check, a DGCA official said. The pilots, who were scheduled to undergo refresher courses at the Mumbai facility, will now not be able to do so.
'The greatest loss from replacing the 126 Rafale proposal with the 2016 contract for 36 Rafales might not be the extra money paid, but the opportunity that India's aerospace industry lost of obtaining access to critical aviation technologies and manufacturing skills.'
If standard accounting standards were followed, the loss would have been about Rs 1,090 crore.
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.
West Asian carriers are up against Air India and IndiGo in the battle for seats on lucrative international routes.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Thursday reserved its order on crisis-hit airline Go First's plea seeking voluntary insolvency resolution proceedings and interim moratorium on financial obligations while aircraft lessors vehemently opposed the petition. Amid the airline facing severe financial crunch and cancelling flights, a two-member NCLT bench comprising Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar and Member L N Gupta heard the arguments for and against the petition for nearly four hours. As aircraft lessors opposed the plea, the counsels for Go First said the petition was not a malicious one to avoid payment of dues to its creditors but to save the company.
Two weeks' time given to CBI for filing a fresh status report.
Tata Group-owned Air India will buy 250 aircraft, including 40 wide-body planes, from Airbus as the airline expands its fleet and operations. This is the first time in more than 17 years that Air India has placed an aircraft order. It is also the first order placed by the carrier under the ownership of Tata Group. On Tuesday, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said Air India has signed a letter of intent to acquire 250 aircraft from Airbus.
The inactivity of Go First may help other airlines in India's competitive market as it had a 7.8 per cent market share.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday came down heavily on the Congress government in Karnataka for flaunting their 'rich fortunes and luxury lifestyles' following a viral video on social media showing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his cabinet colleague B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan in a private jet.
According to the Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of the army, the terrorists attacked the security post in Dera Ismail Khan's Daraban area bordering the South Waziristan tribal district in the early morning hours.
The national carrier, which had placed orders for 27 Dreamliners in 2006, has so far taken the delivery of 13 aircraft.
Full service carrier Vistara will continue to expand and expects to have a total of 70 planes by mid-2024, its chief Vinod Kannan said on Tuesday. The airline, a joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, reported an operating profit for the first time since inception in the three months ended December 2022. By the middle of next year, Kannan said it will have a total of 70 aircraft, including 7 Boeing 787s.
SpiceJet said its freighter aircraft, which was heading to Chongqing in China, returned to Kolkata on Tuesday as the pilots realised after take off that its weather radar was not working.
Jet Airways (India) Ltd has defaulted on lease rentals of its Boeing 737s, highlighting the financial difficulties faced by the airline.
Low-cost carrier IndiGo has asked American aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney (PW) to quickly provide engines for the airline to press its grounded planes back into service, sources said on Wednesday. The airline wants to increase its domestic frequency to fill the supply-side void created after Go First's exit, they added. Go First stopped operating flights from May 3 after filing an insolvency application with the National Company Law Tribunal.
Bangladesh's national carrier Biman will sue US authorities for barring one of its aircrafts from landing at the JFK Airport in New York this week, officials said on Wednesday.
Only the top 5 per cent profit makers account for 75 per cent of profits.
This is at least the ninth incident of technical malfunction on a SpiceJet aircraft in the last 40 days.
On December 31, SpiceJet's accumulated losses had grown to Rs 3,233 crore.
'I hope they all survive, but it is a tough world.' 'The carriers who are already established are already struggling.'
