Showing posts with label indigo airways. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indigo airways. Show all posts

Tuesday, 11 October 2011

Air India: Maharaja’s tears



Air India: Maharaja’s tears

Those who robbed the State carrier are roaming free

One of the most brazen sights on television in early September was a smiling Praful Patel, hopping from one television channel to another, trying to pass the buck to the Air India chairman and a group of ministers. Mr Patel’s ‘achievements’ as civil aviation minister include getting rid of an efficient chairman of Indian Airlines (Sunil Arora, who effected a turnaround and had made the airline truly competitive), initiating a half-baked merger of Indian Airlines and Air India; purchasing a fleet of expensive aircraft that the airlines could not afford, simultaneously giving away lucrative Gulf routes to private carriers and foreign airlines to debilitate Air India further—and leave it with a whopping debt of over Rs40,000 crore which may kill the airline, or make it end up being salvaged by the taxpayer. 

That wasn’t all. Indian Airlines acted as a courier service for Mr Patel’s family, but he promoted the interests of private airlines without any qualms. Airline staffers will give you dates and circulars which show how the lucrative flights of Air India and Indian Airlines had their timings changed or were abruptly pulled out, only to be replaced by private carriers or some of the Gulf airlines. So brazen was the corruption in many ministries those days that people were helplessly silent. Thanks to Niira Radia’s leaked conversations, we know that Mr Arora made a brave attempt to inform the prime minister (PM) and the cabinet secretary about how Indian Airlines was being looted. But, as we know about many such cases of heist, the PM wasn’t listening. 

Praful Patel’s other trick was  cultivating the mainstream media owners and senior journalists. Ms Radia, whose connections in the aviationindustry cemented her reputation in PR, also said that Mr Patel owned stakes in the private airline IndiGo and Mr Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines which were the big beneficiaries of Praful Patel’s regime. Kingfisher enjoyed extraordinary credit indulgence of the public sector oil companies running into a few thousand crores. 

Yet, none of this seems to merit serious discussion by the mainstream media. Even after the CAG (comptroller and auditor general of India) report, it was Mr Patel who was shining on all TV channels. The story has been quickly buried. This should not be tolerated. Accountability must be fixed and those guilty of foisting this colossal loss on the nation must be punished. Everyone knows that the buck stopped at the minister’s desk, but if it is indeed true that the yes-man appointed as chairman of Air India had okayed the loss-making decisions (buying 111 aircraft instead of the 67 that were required—24 for Air India and 43 for Indian Airlines in the medium-capacity long-range category), then he cannot escape either. It will help strengthen the spine of other bureaucrats who are willing to do anything to grab top posts.
Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation
With the second phase of growth inIndian aviationexpected to come from Tier-II and Tier-III cities, almost all domestic airlines are looking to connect these smaller cities for expansion. The regional market is currently under-penetrated and demand ...
Emirates 24/7
Dubai's Emirates airline and other Middle East carriers should be forced to freeze their expansion plans to routes inIndia and the country's Ministry of Civil Aviation should look at options for rollback of existing routes granted to foreign airlines, ...
Moneylife Personal Finance site and magazine
Mr Patel's 'achievements' as civil aviation minister include getting rid of an efficient chairman of Indian Airlines (Sunil Arora, who effected a turnaround and had made the airline truly competitive), initiating a half-baked merger of Indian Airlines ...
Reuters (press release)
They include, in particular, the contract for the upgrade of theIndian Air Force's MIRAGE 2000 fleet signed by DASSAULTAVIATION and THALES. FALCON net sales decreased by 35 % between the two periods. In particular, 35 new aircraft were delivered from ..

Monday, 10 October 2011

Kingfisher plane suffers tyre burst, all passengers safe


Kingfisher plane suffers tyre burst, all passengers safe

Thirteen passengers and a four-member crew had a close shave on Saturday when a Kingfisher aircraft suffered tyre burst while landing at the Kamaraj domestic airport in Chennai.
The flight was bound for Tiruchirapalli but failed to land there due to bad weather and heavy rain. When the plane tried to land back in Chennai, one of its tyres burst and it got stuck on the runway.
Airport authorities confirmed that none of the thirteen passengers and a four-member crew suffered any injuries. Officials also said that the plane has a capacity to carry forty-eight passengers, but there were only thirteen passengers in the fateful flight.
Airport operations remained closed for more than two hours, till 02:30, as the plane couldn’t be immediately moved off the runway.
Detailing the incident, AAI Airport Director E P Hareendranathan said, “The plane was stranded on the runway till the tyres were replaced.”
The incident forced authorities to divert an incoming Lufthansa flight to Bangalore. Five flights scheduled for departure were also delayed.
Hareendranathan said that DGCA would launch a probe to find out the cause for the incident.

Reuters (press release)
They include, in particular, the contract for the upgrade of the Indian Air Force's MIRAGE 2000 fleet signed by DASSAULTAVIATION and THALES. FALCON net sales decreased by 35 % between the two periods. In particular, 35 new aircraft were delivered from ...
Aviation International News
by Harry Weisberger For many years, but especially since leaders of the big three US automakers failed to defend their use of business jets while testifying before Congress, businessaviation has been under attack by ill-informed politicians and the ...
ASIATravelTips.com
The company completed the Federal AviationAdministration certification tests for hot-weather operations using Aircraft Number 6003, thereby demonstrating the capability to properly cool all of the avionics and electrical equipment under the most ...
AMTOnline.com
E. Alton, IL, October 10, 2011 – West StarAviation, Inc announced the expansion of ratings and locations to its Authorized Service Center Agreement with the Hawker Beechcraft Corporation. The expanded ratings included in the Authorized Service Center ...

Friday, 7 October 2011

India to talk to 40 countries on bilateral air service pacts


http://indian-aviation-news.aerosoftseo.com/
http://indian-aviation-news.blogspot.com/

Livemint
At least 40 countries will negotiate on the rights with the Indiancivil aviation ministry at the meeting of the United Nations' wing that's being held on 17-22 October. All told, 60 nations will be attending to talk about flying rights and other ...
Bangkok Post
The carrier is keen to operate flights from Bangkok to Lucknow, New Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai, pending securing traffic rights fromIndian aviationauthorities, said airline president Puttipong Prasarttong-Osoth. Its first foray into India occurred in ...
AFP
India's aviationministry said it could not immediately comment on the story but Indian media reports have said the government is reluctant to proceed with the order due to Air India's financial difficulties. The panel, which is reviewing Air India's ...
aircargoworld
Opposition to the EU ETS in all corners of the aviation sector has been intensifying. Members of theIndian government drafted up a declaration condemning the scheme recently. Prashant Sukul, joint secretary in India'sMinistry of Aviation...

Wednesday, 5 October 2011

Ministerial Panel to Discuss Air India Dreamliner Order in Week to Oct. 22



http://indian-aviation-news.aerosoftseo.com/
http://indian-aviation-news.blogspot.com/


NEW DELHI – A panel of senior Indian ministers tasked with overseeing a turnaround plan for Air India Ltd. will meet later this month to decide on the national carrier's order for 27 Dreamliner 787 planes from Boeing Co. , a top official at the civil aviation ministry said.

The meeting, scheduled for the week to Oct. 22, comes as Boeing gets set to deliver the first Dreamliner plane to Air India in this quarter, following a delay of more than three years. Air India wants to take the planes to expand its long-haul operations and intensify competition with carriers in the Middle East, Europe and the U.S.

"The group of ministers will discuss whether it makes commercial sense for Air India to buy the Dreamliners or not," the official said late Tuesday.

He said the government wants also to ensure that Air India has the financial capability to pay for the Dreamliner planes instead of seeking federal assistance in the future.

The panel will decide whether to ask Air India to cancel or defer the delivery of the Dreamliners, the official said. The list price for each Dreamliner aircraft as of 2010 was $185.2 million, but airlines usually get a discount on this price.

The 27 Dreamliners are part of a total of 111 planes ordered by Air India and the erstwhile Indian Airlines from Boeing and Airbus. Air India ordered 68 planes from Boeing in December 2005, and Indian Airlines ordered 43 planes from Airbus in February 2006. Air India and Indian Airlines were merged in 2007 to form Air India Ltd.

Air India has been incurring losses post its merger due to falling load factors and higher fuel costs. It was also hurt by the large aircraft order.

The Indian government has injected a total of 25 billion rupees ($510 million) into the carrier in the last two fiscal years and has assured another 12 billion rupees this fiscal year through March 2012.

Apart from the Dreamliners and three other Boeing planes, Air India has taken delivery of all the other aircraft in the 111-plane order. It is scheduled to take delivery of the first seven Dreamliners between November and March.

The panel of ministers, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, will also discuss Air India's financial turnaround plan, which includes reworking its network, increasing its fleet size, restructuring debt, hiving off businesses into separate units and diverting excess workforce to the new units, the official said.

Business Standard
Analysts say mergers by India's airlines have not been successful so far because of their objectives: it's to either kill competition or acquire flying rights to fly international. In 2007 alone, Indian aviation saw three mergers — Kingfisher Airlines ...
Wall Street Journal
The declaration was released by theIndian government late Friday after a two-day meeting of the International CivilAviation Organization in New Delhi. The declaration opposes the EU's plan to "include all flights by non-EU carriers to and from an ...
Wall Street Journal
... Indian ministers tasked with overseeing a turnaround plan for Air India Ltd. will meet later this month to decide on the national carrier's order for 27 Dreamliner 787 planes from Boeing Co. , a top official at the civil aviationministry said. ...
Moneycontrol.com
According to CNBC-TV18, DIPP Secretary RP Singh has written a letter to his colleague in theaviation ministry where he says that private equity firms cannot be expected to pick up equity stake in domestic Indiancarriers as it is very risky sector. ...