Govt mulling sale of Air India's ground handling services arm: Sources

The government is mulling strategic sale of Air India subsidiary AIATSL to raise funds and help cut debt of the national carrier, according to official sources.

Strategic sale of Air India Air Transport Service (AIATSL), which provides ground handling services, is being planned as part of the turnaround scheme for Air India which is reeling under a debt burden of Rs 480 billion at end of March 2017.

The official sources said strategic sale of AIATSL is in the works.

"The Expression of Interest (EoI) for bidders would be floated soon after the GoM clears the EoI," the sources told PTI.

The stake sale plan follows the decision of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley led ministerial panel in June to make the airline competitive, but cutting down debt and raising resources by selling land assets and other subsidiaries.

GoAir international ops launch in Oct, first flight on Mumbai-Phuket route

Wadia group-owned budget carrier GoAir is all set to fly international from October, with the first flight to operate on the Mumbai-Phuket route, a source privy to the development said. 

The bookings for the maiden international flight will commence soon and an announcement to this effect is expected to be made by Thursday, the source said.

The Mumbai-based airline, which became eligible to fly overseas more than two years ago when it took delivery of its 20th aircraft, which was also the first Airbus A320 Neo for the airline, will be the fifth domestic carrier to have international operations.

"We will be launching our international operations with a flight to Phuket (Thailand) from Mumbai in October. We have all regulatory approvals in place and the flight is expected to go into the system (bookings) in a week's time," the source told PTI.

The source said the airline is looking to launch three to four international destinations by March next year, adding the proposed Mumbai-Phuket service will be a daily operation.  

Charging less than Rs 10/km, Indian airlines among world's cheapest five

Low-cost carriers IndiGo and Air India Express have been ranked among the top five cheapest airlines in the world in providing international connectivity.

Air India Express, the wholly-owned subsidiary of state-run carrier Air India has been ranked second and the budget carrier IndiGo placed at fifth position in a Global Flight Pricing Report prepared by Melbourne-based Rome2rio -- a multimodal travel planning site.

Two other Indian carriers also figured in the list. Jet Airways gained the 12th place followed by Air India at 13th position.

The report compared 200 major airlines across continents by the average price per kilometre with Air Asia X taking the pole position.

Air India Express, mostly connecting Gulf countries and Singapore, has an average cost of $0.08 per km and IndiGo $0.10 per km. The latter connects Indian cities with Gulf countries besides Bangkok, Colombo and Kathmandu.

Saudi to give bar codes to Air India, Jet crew, not retain their passports

The Saudi Arabian government has decided not to retain the passport of the Indian airline crew members on arrival in the country and issue a bar code instead, an Air India spokesperson confirmed.

The move comes as a big relief to the crew of Air India and Jet Airways, the two Indian airlines who fly to that country. Indian authorities had taken up the issue with the Saudi authorities and the decision not to retain the passport of the crews of Indian airlines came into effect from mid-February this year, the Air Indian spokesperson said.

The bar code given to the crew members will have a limited validity.

The development also comes against the backdrop of Saudi Arabia allowing a newly introduced Air India flight from New Delhi to Tel Aviv fly over its airspace, seen as a major diplomatic development in West Asia.

Air India's new owners to inherit planes, prime slots, and $5 bn of debt

India is selling a controlling stake in its flagship carrier along with two-thirds of the loss-making airline’s about $7.8 billion debt, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi moves ahead with the nation’s most high profile asset sale in decades.
The government will sell 76 percent of Air India Ltd., according to a document uploaded on the civil aviation ministry’s website on Wednesday. The airline’s overseas budget carrier will be completely sold in the offer, while the state will sell a 50 percent stake in the ground handling unit separately. The administration may also ask the buyer to conduct an initial public offering.

A successful sale of Air India, which is surviving on taxpayer-funded bailouts, is seen as test case for Modi to burnish his credentials as a reformist attempting to steer the state away from running businesses and boost spending on health and education. The national carrier has five subsidiaries, a joint venture and a combined workforce of as many as 27,000.

“Selling a 76 percent stake is the second-best option for the government; the best option would have been to exit completely,” said Kapil Kaul, South Asia CEO at CAPA Centre for Aviation, “There’s also a caveat there that the acquirer will have to list the company, which means the government is looking at exiting through an IPO route, which is fair enough and very positive.

Goa-Mumbai Air India flight makes emergency landing after hydraulic failure

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A full emergency was declared on an Air India aircraft arriving at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, due to hydraulic failure on Sunday.

However, Air India aircraft 662 landed safely at 8:15 p.m. on Runway 27, as informed by the spokesperson the airport.

The full emergency was withdrawn at 8:29 p.m
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Soon, pilots, air crew may have to undergo alcohol test at transit airports

Pilots and crew members might soon be required to undergo breath analyser tests at transit airports in case they enter the terminal building during flight duty, according to draft norms issued by the DGCA.

The aviation regulator has proposed changes to the 'Procedure for medical examination of aircraft personnel for alcohol consumption' against the backdrop of more than 500 pilots and cabin crew of Air India coming under its scanner for allegedly skipping the pre-and post-flight alcohol tests this year.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has also proposed that repeated violation of breath analyser test norms could result in suspension of the pilot's licence for up to four years, subject to certain conditions.

At present, the quantum of punishment for the violations vary from three months to cancellation of pilot licence or grounding of cabin crew.

"During a flight duty period, if a crew member enters the terminal building at any transit airport, that crew member shall undergo the pre-flight breath analyser examination at that airport before undertaking the flight," as per the draft Civil Aviation Requirement
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Snag forces Paris-bound Air India flight to return to Delhi after take off

A technical snag on Sunday forced an Air India flight carrying 220 passengers from Delhi to Paris to return to the IGI international airport here over 90 minutes after take off.

The flight resumed three-and-a-half hours later after the aircraft, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, was replaced by another one.

"AI 143 departed from Indira Gandhi International airport at 1:58 pm but returned at 3.38 pm," said a spokesperson.

The substitute aircraft finally departed at 7.10 pm from New Delhi.
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Singapore Airlines launches A350 from Mumbai

The Singapore Airlines group, which operates 175 weekly flights out of India, including 17 from the city, is replacing its ageing Boeing 777 fleet with the modern A350s in the Mumbai-Singapore sector from Saturday.

The airline group, which way back in 1992 had tried to enter the country with the Tatas and has since then tied up with same group and operates Vistara, refused to speculate on whether it is interested in the national carrier Air India, which has been put on block for privatisation.

"As a policy we don't respond to market speculation," was all Singapore Airlines India general manager David Lim would say when sought his views on the government's move to disinvest the debt-ridden airline and whether his group will be interested in the same.

The aviation policy allows 49 per cent ownership by foreign carriers in domestic airlines. The details of the Air India divestment is not clear.

He also announced discount fares as part of Singapore Airlines' 70th anniversary, starting from Rs 22,070, to the city-state in the new aircraft beginning tomorrow.

Singapore Airlines, on its own, operates over 55 flights a week from India, while the group, that comprises Silk Air, Scoot and Tiger Air, operates the rest connecting 15 cities in the country.

The new 253-seater wide-body plane, which is the youngest aircraft in the industry now, will have 42 business class seats, 24 premium economy and 187 economy seats, while the 777 was carrying 263 passengers.
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BSNL-MTNL merger plan to be placed before Cabinet by June

The Department of Telecom is planning to place merger proposal of loss-making public sector firms BSNL and MTNL before the Cabinet by June, according to a parliamentary panel report.

"On the plan for merger of BSNL and MTNL, the same would taken to Cabinet before June," the Standing Committee on Information Technology chaired by BJP MP Anurag Thakur said in its report.

The former telecom secretary J S Deepak has informed the panel that the Department of Telecom is working on a plan but "would not say that we have a plan of integrating these two companies in phases".

Deepak said that merger of PSU like Air India and Indian Airlines has not been a happy experience.

"...But we realised that there would be some synergy in merger. We may have to do it in stages and we are working to develop a plan. I would want to take it to Cabinet before the end of June," he said.

Deepak was last month shifted with "immediate effect" from the telecom ministry and made officer on special duty in the commerce department.

The panel was informed that both the state-run telecom firms are dogged by various issues like poor quality service, lack of investment, continuous loss and MTNL is even borrowing money to meet its day to day expenses.

Deepak informed the panel that there are 3 lakh employees without required skill in BSNL and MTNL that incur liability of Rs 1,000 crore per month wage bills.

The panel recommended to the DoT that it should look into possibility of skilling the unskilled employees and should come out with a revised VRS proposal for those who cannot be skilled.

"With regard to merger of BSNL and MTNL , the Committee recommends that the case of merger of Air India and Indian Airlines should be carefully examined while developing a merger plan and the same should be implemented with the objective to make them strong," the panel said. (READ MORE)