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Aviation Sector In India
An Air India flight from Chicago to Delhi returned to the US city after being airborne for more than ten hours on Thursday, with the airline saying the return was due to a technical issue. However, a source aware of the development told PTI that the aircraft had to return as many of the lavatories were clogged. The flight was operated with a Boeing 777-337 ER aircraft and returned to Chicago's ORD airport after being airborne for over ten hours, according to information available on flight tracking website flightradar24.com. There are 10 lavatories, including two for first-class passengers, in the Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft operated by Air India and has little over 340 seats, including first, business and economy class seats, the source said. The source also said only 1 lavatory was functional. When reached out for comments, an Air India spokesperson said AI126 operating Chicago to Delhi on March 6 air-returned to Chicago due to a technical issue. "Upon landing at Chicago, all ..
The budgetary allocation for the civil aviation ministry has been cut by nearly 10 per cent to Rs 2,400.31 crore for the next financial year, with the regional air connectivity scheme UDAN set to get a lower amount of Rs 540 crore. The allocation in the Union Budget 2025-26, presented by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament on Saturday, is less compared to Rs 2,658.68 crore in the revised 2024-25 Budget. Out of the total allocation for the next fiscal starting from April 1, 2025, UDAN will get Rs 540 crore, which is 32 per cent lower compared to Rs 800 crore in the year-ago period. Interestingly, Sitharaman has announced that UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme will be modified to connect 120 new destinations. As per the budget papers, the allocation for the DGCA and BCAS have increased marginally to Rs 330 crore and Rs 95 crore, respectively, for 2025-26. For the Customs Cost Recovery (CCR) charges to Airport Authority of India (AAI) and AAI Cargo Logistics and
Akasa Air, India's youngest airline, is well-capitalized and plans to add 5-10 new destinations, including international routes, next year as it aims to maintain its position as the country's fastest-growing airline, CEO Vinay Dube said. Dube, in an interaction with PTI, also projected an "incredibly bright" outlook for the next 30 years and said the delay in the delivery of one or two aircraft does not change the fundamentals of the airline's business or growth trajectory as it has built an extremely "strong and stable" platform. The nearly two-and-a-half-year-old Rakesh Jhunjhunwala family-backed Akasa Air currently has a fleet of 27 Boeing 737 Max planes and commanded a 4.6 per cent market share in CY2024. "It is no secret that Boeing has been delayed in its delivery stream. No secret about that, either from us or Boeing or any other airline whether one or two aircraft were late or not, is not something that changes the fundamentals of our business. It does not change the growth
The country's civil aviation industry is projected to report a net loss of Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 crore in the current and next financial year as supply chain challenges and engine issues are expected to continue for some more time, according to a report. In the report on Tuesday, rating agency Icra also said that domestic air passenger traffic was estimated at 153 lakh in December, 7.3 per cent higher compared to 142.5 lakh recorded in November last year. "Further, it grew by ~10.8 per cent on a YoY basis and was higher by ~17.5 per cent than the pre-Covid levels, i.e., December 2019. The airlines' capacity deployment in December 2024 was higher than December 2023 by ~7.5 per cent and by ~3.8 per cent over November 2024," it added. Giving a stable outlook for the Indian aviation industry, Icra said there are expectations of moderate growth in domestic air passenger traffic and a relatively stable cost environment in FY25. Moreover, the industry witnessed improved pricing power durin
In a bid to establish Odisha as a leader in India's aviation industry, the state government has started consultation to develop maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facilities here, an official said on Tuesday. A high-level stakeholder consultation, hosted by the Commerce and Transport Department, was held on Monday and attendees deliberated on the development of MRO in the state. Our goal is to establish Odisha as a leader in India's aviation industry. We are developing bespoke policies and offering substantial incentives and skill development programmes to empower local talent and ensure sustained industrial growth. This initiative is a pivotal step towards achieving the vision of a Viksit Odisha, Chief Secretary Manoj Ahuja, who presided over the meeting, said. The focus has been on innovation, infrastructure and industrial growth to create a robust aviation ecosystem, he said. Commerce and Transport Department Principal Secretary Usha Padhee said the effort is made to bring .
The trails of mega-mergers, tailwinds of expanding fleets, flights and airports will dot the fast-growing Indian aviation firmament in 2025, though the dark clouds of supply chain woes will persist longer. Also, new airline takeoffs, the future trajectory of revised norms to tackle pilot fatigue and efforts to reduce carbon emissions will be on the radar. And in 2024, two airlines flew into the sunset, one airline is on a liquidation taxiway, aircraft orders climbed, single-day domestic air passenger traffic soared past record 5 lakh at least twice, and airfare movements continued to raise concerns. Not to leave out 999 hoax bomb calls received by airlines till November 14 this year. The aviation sector had its share of accidents in the form of a few trainer aircraft crashes and a roof collapse incident at Terminal 1 of the Delhi airport that killed one person. For the "fascinating" Indian market, where the domestic air traffic is projected to jump to 164-170 million this fiscal ..
Air India on Friday said it is setting up a Basic Maintenance Training Organisation (BMTO), which will offer an integrated 2+2 years Aircraft Maintenance Engineering (AME) programme certified by the Indian aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The Air India BMTO is a step towards building a robust, future-ready aviation ecosystem in India, the company said. It will serve the ambitions of the airline as it moves ahead in its transformation journey, strengthening the availability of aircraft maintenance engineers as Air India expands its fleet, making it self-reliant, it said in a release. Air India has signed an agreement with Bengaluru Airport City Limited (BACL), a subsidiary of Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), to develop a build-to-suit facility for the AME programme that will feature modern classrooms, well-equipped laboratories for practical training and a team of qualified trainers. The purpose-built campus, spread over 86,000 square f
A message claiming a bomb had been placed on Air India's flight from Delhi to Mumbai via Indore was posted on a social media platform which later turned out to be a hoax, police said on Wednesday. The Indore police in Madhya Pradesh have registered a case in this connection against an unidentified person, they said. The "threatening message" that a pipe bomb was placed in Air India's flight AI 636 was posted on an X social media account at 5.08 pm on Tuesday, an Aerodrome police station officer said quoting a complaint by a local official of the airline. The flight, arriving from Delhi, had already left for Mumbai from Indore at 4.38 pm, he said. "The message about a pipe bomb being placed in the Air India flight was proved to be fake in our investigation," Deputy Commissioner of Police Vinod Kumar Meena told PTI. A case was registered against the unidentified person who posted the threatening message on social media under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita section 351 (4) (criminal intimida
The civil aviation ministry plans to put in place strict norms to prevent incidents of hoax bomb threats to airlines, including placing the perpetrators on the no-fly list, a senior official said on Thursday. In four days, more than 20 flights of various Indian airlines received bomb threats, including international flights, and some of them were diverted. Most of the threats have turned out to be hoaxes. Against this backdrop, the ministry is looking at amending existing rules, including those related to the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), in order to ensure stringent punishments are in place for the culprits, the official in the know said. Placing individuals making hoax bomb threats in the airlines' no-fly list is one of the proposals being looked at, the official said. The official also said legal opinions are being gathered with respect to making the changes in the rules. The provisions being followed in foreign countries to deal with hoax bomb threats are also bein