Tag Archives: Air India

With almost half of its 31,500 employees not directly involved in flying an airline, Govindraj Ethiraj raises an interesting question on whether Air India is an airline or much more in his article in the Business Standard. It is a very interesting read. The Mint has a seven step action plan to rescue Air India. I had covered many of …

The Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mr Murli Deora, informed the Lok Sabha (lower house of the Indian parliament) that Indian domestic airlines Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways, National Aviation Company of India Ltd (Air India), Paramount and SpiceJet, still owe a whopping Rs. 2,225.52 Crore ($445 million) to the stated owned oil marketing companies Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum …

On the morning of May 5th an Airbus A321 operating Air India flight AI-179 with a seating capacity of 172 passengers was accidentally pushed back from the gate at Mumbai airport while the aero bridge was still connected to the aircraft. The door was badly damaged, and the passengers had to be transferred to another aircraft. In the ensuing accident …

As per media reports, civil aviation minister Mr. Praful Patel announced in Chennai yesterday, there would be no job cuts despite the hugely over-bloated workforce at Air India. This is precisely the political meddling and easy options approach that I had warned about in my earlier article. Mr. Patel, if you are unable to help Air India management, at least …

The Joint Investigation team constituted on February 19, 2009 to investigate the serious incident of a near miss between the Presidential Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter and a Air India flight IC-866 on February 9, 2009 at Mumbai airport has submitted it report to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. To translate the official findings (shown below), the Presidential formation called …

Go Air increases Bangalore flights. GoAir recently inducted it’s eighth Airbus A320-214, most likely VT-WAK. (Despite follow up the airline’s media partner could not give me the information.) After a complete withdrawal from Bangalore, GoAir has re-focussed on Bangalore with two new connections to Mumbai and New Delhi, taking the airline’s total number of weekly flights to 377. With the …

Air India has been in the news this week for all the wrong reasons. I would like to finish the work week on a positive note and present pictures of Air India’s latest Airbus A319-112 VT-SCQ which entered service just a few days before this picture was taken on June 14th at Bengaluru International Airport. Reversing thrust after touchdown on …

The delays of the much awaited Boeing 787 Dreamliner is leaving the business plans of many airlines in tatters. Major Asia Pacific carriers like launch customer All Nippon Airways (ANA), Qantas, and Air New Zealand are scrambling to make alternate arrangements with stop-gap aircraft like the Boeing 767. At the recently concluded Paris air show, Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar …

As expected, the Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh has promised support to the state owned National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL) which operates under the brand Air India. However, also as expected, the Prime Minister has not given a blank cheque to the carrier. The amount of the bailout is subject to the airline delivering to him …

The state owned National Aviation Company of India Limited NACIL, which operates the airline Air India is in crisis. It’s annual losses have reached a staggering Rs. 5,000 crore ($1 billion) and total accumulated debt of Rs. 16,000 crore ($3.2 billion). Air India contributes 10% of global airline losses with just 0.35% of global traffic. It owes over Rs. 1,400 …

Buoyed by the summer holiday season and the continuing rise in the Indian economy, domestic passenger traffic rose by almost 20% to 3.93 million in May from 3.315 million passengers in April. There was no significant change in the market shares of the various airlines, but the low cost carriers IndiGo, SpiceJet, Go Air and JetLite have continued increasing their …

Brazil’s navy recovered a large part of F-GZCP’s vertical stabiliser better known as the rudder, yesterday. The New York Times reports, the part, bearing the trademark stripes and logo of Air France, bore no evident burn marks and had retained its triangular shape, save for a missing chunk where it appeared to have been torn from the body of the …

As the annual meeting of the airline body International Air Transport Association (IATA) commenced in Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, the news for Boeing India chief Dinesh Keskar is not good. Both Jet Airways and Air India, his two major customers in India, are considering deferring the deliveries of their Boeing 787 Dreamliner orders. Jet Airway’s chairman and founder, Naresh Goyal, …

Flickr user Moonm recently captured Air India’s latest Boeing 777-200LR at the corporate hangers at Boeing. Click on image for a larger view. Photo courtesy and copyright Flickr user moonm The Boeing 777-237 model construction number 36305 is powered by GE GE90-110B1L engines and is registered VT-ALF. Part of an eight aircraft order, it will be the sixth LR to …

Mumbai airport is in the news again and not for any right reason. After a near fiasco with the presidential helicopter less than three months ago, a major disaster was averted at Mumbai airport on the same day that Mumbai airport has commenced 24 hour cross runway operations. An Air India Airbus A310-300, flight AI-348 from Mumbai to Delhi, India …

PTI is reporting that Four armed robbers struck the Air India cargo terminal at the Mumbai airport today looting at gunpoint about 100 kgs of gold and silver coins worth Rs 3.5 million ($70,000) in a daring daylight heist. A guard working for Air India and identified as D S Bhosale was killed when he was struck by the car …

The month of April has been bringing signs of a slowing down in the economic slow down. Industrial production, railways freight loading (indicative of raw materials for the core sector of steel, cement, mining), employment, stock markets and even inflation rates have moved back in to positive territory. While it a month does not make a trend, there is a …

An Air India flight from Mumbai to Delhi IC611 made an emergency landing at Jaipur after the airline received a bomb threat that turned out to be a hoax. As per NDTV, the call was traced to a passenger Mr. Manoj Bansal, who it is alleged had tele-checked in earlier at Mumbai and was allotted seat 23C. For some reason …

Going against the current flow of deferred deliveries or outright cancellations, the state-owned National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL) better known as Air India will induct 30 aircraft in the current fiscal year ending March 2010, and another 45 by March 2012, as part of its fleet expansion plans. Compare this with the large scale deferrals and cancellations by …

March continued the gloomy news for the domestic airline industry in India, with a decline. For the month of March 2009 domestic passenger count stood at 3.15 million down from 3.32 million in February and 3.31 million in January. Despite Kingfisher airlines continuing to be the largest domestic airline in India with almost 27% market share in March and 27.27% …