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.
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.
This is at least the ninth incident of technical malfunction on a SpiceJet aircraft in the last 40 days.
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.
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.
Terming as "unfortunate" the loss of lives in the Malaysian Airlines tragedy, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Friday said there was no Indian on board the aircraft.
One pilot is injured and has been shifted to a hospital, while another one is unhurt, the spokesman said.
'I hope they all survive, but it is a tough world.' 'The carriers who are already established are already struggling.'
This is the third instance in the last three days when the aviation regulator grounded a plane after an incident.
Only the top 5 per cent profit makers account for 75 per cent of profits.
The airline has closed reservation for flights to Silchar, Imphal, Aizawl, Jorhat in northeastern states from mid-February. Reservation has also been closed for flights to Madurai, Visakhapatnam, Raipur, Muscat and Sharjah.
The airlines, which was forced to defer payment of June salary to majority of its staff, has piled up a loss of Rs 7,200 crore as on March 31. For the fiscal 2008-09, it is estimated to have incurred a loss of about Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion) in a difficult global aviation market.
President Droupadi Murmu has approved 76 gallantry awards, including four Kirti Chakras posthumously and 11 Shaurya Chakras to personnel of the security forces, on the eve of the 77th Independence Day, officials said.
Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt in a written response to a query in Rajya Sabha on Monday said that "as on date, the DRDO is working on 55 mission mode projects out of which 23 projects are delayed".
The airline, which was formed through a merger of international carrier Air India and domestic carrier Indian Airlines announced in 2007, has accumulated losses of Rs 4,334 crore till March 31, of which fiscal 2008-09 will account for almost Rs 3,000 crore.
Air India chief Campbell Wilson on Friday said that a majority of pilots have accepted the new compensation package offered last week, amid protests by Air India pilots' unions against the revised salary structure and service conditions. The loss-making airline, which was taken over from the government by the Tata Group in January 2022, has announced a new compensation package for pilots and cabin crew. In his weekly message to Air India staff on Friday, Campbell said the airline is making investments in workplace technology and training as well as in new and improved employee benefits.
The two episodes on a single day have taken the total number of technical malfunction incidents involving SpiceJet aircraft to seven in the last 17 days.
Indian airline Go First is considering legal action against Pratt and Whitney (PW) for failing to provide compensation after March 2020 for planes grounded due to engine supply delays, sources said on Thursday. About 90 per cent of the airline's fleet of aircraft uses PW engines. About 24 of the airline's 55 planes are grounded due to delays in engine supply by PW.
'The unity among Israelis is such that the killing of the many Israelis is like a personal loss.' 'They feel as if they have lost someone from their own family. The whole of Israel is sad.'
Further, the ministry spokesperson, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said that the Russian fighter jets and air defence systems have shot down 10 Ukrainian combat aircraft and helicopters over the past 24 hours.
The losses are primarily because the venture operated only for 18 days in June, with only two flights.
Rising crude oil prices and muted passenger traffic in the July-September quarter (second quarter, or Q2) of 2023-24 (FY24) have raised concerns about the profitability of listed aviation players. These two concerns have caused the stock of InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo), the largest player in the sector, to slip by 11 per cent since its highs at the end of July. Nuvama Research expects yields to cool down in the near term due to seasonality, rising crude oil prices, and higher capacity.
Vistara is trying to be leaner and meaner, while staying focused on the original brand promise; it aims to be profitable by FY21. Arindam Majumder reports.
Shares of Jet Airways on Wednesday tanked over 10 per cent in the morning trade as the airline has posted its highest-ever annual loss of Rs 4,129 crore (Rs 41.29 billion).
Air India is set to increase capacity on domestic and international routes over the next few months as it overhauls its grounded aircraft. Air India has the approval to operate 2,456 flights per week in the summer schedule. This is more than a 16 per cent increase over 2020. But its international schedule has declined 41 per cent (compared to winter 2019) to 361 weekly departures.
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.
SpiceJet has failed to 'establish safe, efficient and reliable air services' under the terms of Rule 134 and Schedule XI of the Aircraft Rules, 1937, the notice issued by the DGCA stated.
Indian airlines on Wednesday filled aviation turbine fuel (ATF) into the tanks of their aircraft at Rs 68,000 a kilolitre. Around the same time, ATF sold at $1,037.8 (Rs 41,500) a kilolitre at the Singapore airport -- full 39 per cent below Indian prices.
There has been, a nominal increase in the aircraft maintenance cost.
The aircraft has to fly through five consecutive days.
The DGCA conducted the spot checks as there have been many technical malfunction incidents in Indian carriers' planes during the last 45 days.
Despite the best ever quarterly net profit of Rs 3,091 crore during April-June of financial year 2023-24 (Q1FY24), challenges are mounting for InterGlobe Aviation-run IndiGo in the near term, said analysts. Given this, most brokerages have retained their ratings from 'buy to underperform', as well as their target price for the stock. For instance, Motilal Oswal Financial Services has retained its 'neutral' rating on the scrip as it believes the low-cost airline is facing teething issues at present.
Cheetah will have to spend their entire air transit period empty stomach, a senior Indian forest department official said on Tuesday.
Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran on Thursday said the best of artificial intelligence and machine learning will be deployed at Air India and emphasised that the airline is not just another business for the group but a passion and a national mission. As Tata Group steers the transformation of loss-making Air India since taking control in January last year, Chandrasekaran said that he most of the time receives "caring criticism" about the airline that also further strengthens the commitment. Speaking at an event in the national capital where Air India's new brand identity and aircraft livery were unveiled, he said the focus is on upgrading all human resources aspects in the airline.
To reduce those not even meeting variable costs to 19% of network by March, from 38% five months ago.
Tata Group's takeover of loss-making national carrier Air India is most likely delayed by a month till January as the completion of procedures taking longer than expected, an official said on Monday. In October, the government accepted the highest bid made by a Tata Sons company for 100 per cent equity shares of Air India and Air India Express along with its 50 per cent stake in ground-handling company AISATS -- the first privatisation in 20 years. At that time, the government had stated that it wanted to complete the transactions, which included Tatas paying Rs 2,700 crore in cash, by December end.
The government has notified the agreement between Air India and special purpose vehicle AIAHL for the transfer of non-core assets, ahead of the national airline's takeover by the Tata Group. The government had in October last year, inked the share purchase agreement with the Tata Group for the sale of national carrier Air India for Rs 18,000 crore. The Tata Group is expected to take full control of the airline, it founded in 1932, on Thursday. The cash component of the deal would come once the handover process is completed. The Tata Group would pay Rs 2,700 crore cash and take over Rs 15,300 crore of the airline's debt.
India's aviation industry could return to profitability in 2023-24 for the first time since the pandemic. The industry may pare aggregated net loss by 75-80 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to between Rs 3,500 crore and Rs 4,500 crore in 2022-23 (FY23), compared with Rs 17,500 crore of net losses in 2021-22 (FY22). A combination of recovery in passenger volumes and easing cost pressures due to stable fuel and foreign exchange (forex) costs could spark a turnaround. CRISIL says domestic and international passenger traffic recovered to 90 per cent and 98 per cent, respectively, of pre-pandemic traffic (2019-20, or FY20), in April-December 2022, compared with April-December 2019.
Group Captain Varun Singh, the lone survivor in the horrifying chopper crash near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu, was conferred with the Shaurya Chakra in August for averting a possible mid-air accident after his Tejas light combat aircraft suffered a major technical glitch last year.
The government on Monday signed the share purchase agreement with Tata Sons for the sale of national carrier Air India for Rs 18,000 crore. Earlier this month, the government had accepted an offer by Talace Pvt Ltd, a unit of the holding company of the salt-to-software conglomerate, to pay Rs 2,700 crore cash and take over Rs 15,300 crore of the airline's debt. Following that, on October 11 a Letter of Intenet (LoI) was issued to the Tata Group confirming the government's willingness to sell its 100 per cent stake in the airline.
