Last week Indian national carrier Air India took delivery of it newest Airbus A320 equipped with the new Sharklet wingtips. The aircraft is registered VT-EXA and was ferried to New Delhi on the 5th of February. The aircraft delivered under a 12-year operating lease agreement from China Aircraft Leasing Group Holdings Limited (CALC). CALC shall deliver an additional four new …
Read More »
In a bold move national carrier Air India has put errant employees and vendors who delay flights on notice. The airline will deduct salaries of employees and caterers found responsible for delays of flights. The Maharaja which has one of the worst one-time performance (OTP) records amongst Indian carriers, has been instructed by the top bureaucrat in the civil aviation …
Read More »
It appears that Air India’s troublesome Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner VT-ANI has finally completed its repairs and retrofits and is getting ready for flight. From a supporter of Bangalore Aviation comes this photo taken at Mumbai airport on India’s Republic Day, January 26, 2015. A hat-tip to the boss. Readers will recall, since April 2014, nine months ago, Air India’s Boeing …
Read More »
National carrier Air India finds itself in a jumbo-sized problem. It has a huge excess of wide-body ‘jumbo’ and ‘mini-jumbo’ aircraft used for international flights, while facing a severe shortage of narrow body aircraft leaving it unable to capitalise on the increased winter demand and the additional demand shying away from SpiceJet due to the latter’s financial troubles. The current …
Read More »
On January 19th, Bloomberg reported that national carrier Air India will commence large scale fuel hedging for the first time. The story was promptly picked up and reported by many leading Indian newspapers the next morning, including The Business Standard and The Mint. As per the story, “Air India is hedging 2 million barrels of aviation turbine fuel annually at …
Read More »
National carrier Air India will introduce a daily direct daily service between New Delhi and Vijayawada from tomorrow, January 15, 2015 which will be the second service on the route. Presently the carrier flies on a one-stop flight via Hyderabad. The new flight AI459 departs New Delhi at 06:20 and arrives Vijayawada at 08:25 The return flight AI460 departs Vijayawada …
Read More »
Air India’s newest Boeing 777-200LR VT-ALH Maharashtra has finally flown after a gap of over 31 months after it was in storage since March 29, 2012. The test flight AI555 took off from Mumbai’s Chhatrapathi Shivaji airport around 13:20 on Friday, January 9, 2015 and performed a series of race track circuits for about 100 minutes (1h40m) before returning at …
Read More »
India’s two operators of wide-body aircraft, national carrier Air India and private sector Jet Airways will be deploying wide-body aircraft on their routes between Mumbai New Delhi Bengaluru and Chennai to boost capacity for the new year period. Jet Airways will deploy its surplus A330-200s while Air India will deploy its Boeing 777-300ERs. Jet Airways commenced operating its Airbus A330-200s …
Read More »
Air India’s regional subsidiary company Airline Allied Services Ltd. (AASL) which operates the brand “Alliance Air” has inducted the first of five new ATR72-600 turbo-props in to its fleet. The aircraft registered VT-AII, is leased from Singapore-based aircraft lessor Avation. The livery is painted “Air India Regional”. The right side of the aircraft which is painted in English can be …
Read More »
Based on the recent statement of the Indian Minister of State for civil aviation to the Indian parliament we have produced these two graphics showing the country-wise break-up of Air India’s passengers and revenue for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2014. Air India transported 15,831,554 passengers earning revenues of Rs 15,551.78 thus earning an average revenue of Rs 9,823.28 …
Read More »
Based on the statement of the Indian Minister of State for civil aviation to the Indian parliament we have produced this graph showing the expenses of Air India for the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2014. Total expenditure for the year 2013-14 was Rs 25,050.60 crores (approximately $ 4.04 billion) against a total passenger revenue of Rs 15,551.79 and …
Read More »
Bold decisions, strong initiative and alert reactions by Air India pilots resulted in a passenger suffering an on-board medical emergency being successfully rushed to hospital. An Air India Boeing 787-8 VT-ANP performing flight AI-331 from Bangkok, Thailand to Mumbai, India on November 5, with 244 passengers on-board, diverted to Kolkata India to offload an on-board medical emergency. Around 21:00 IST …
Read More »
National carrier Air India has entered in to a code-share agreement with the flag carrier of Kazakhstan Air Astana JSC. Air India’s Chairman and Managing Director Rohit Nandan and Air Astana’s Vice President – Sales Worldwide, Richard Ledger, signed the agreement. The agreement commences with Air India placing its airline code (AI) on daily flights between New Delhi and Almaty …
Read More »
A warm welcome on Twitter to national carrier Air India. Despite the multiple accounts sounding like the airline, its official Twitter account is @airindiain. The carrier joins its private competitors like Jet Airways (@jetairways) SpiceJet (@flyspicejet), IndiGo (@IndiGo6E), and GoAir (@goairlinesindia) on Twitter. Though the account was officially opened in 2011, it seems to have become active only earlier this …
Read More »
Update: Oct. 14, 2014. 21:00 IST An Air India spokesperson sent us an e-mail and said “Aircraft VT-ANI is currently undergoing reliability improvement retrofit (modification) and will resume operations in November.” This is nice to hear. Can someone with subject matter expertise please explain what is the retro-fit being done? Why is this specific to only this aircraft? Why does …
Read More »
In a smart move that should benefit the national carrier, the Government has extended the tenure of Air India’s Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. Rohit Nandan up to August 2015. As per an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved the extension “till August 21, 2015 or till the appointment …
Read More »After a gap of nearly four years, Malaysia low cost carrier AirAsia returns to Hyderabad airport. The airline will commence daily services between its Kuala Lumpur hub and Hyderabad from December 8, 2014. The airline had pulled out from Hyderabad on January 11, 2011 citing high airport charges. The airline will use an ‘all night’ over-night red-eye schedule which is …
Read More »
While not officially announced, it appears Air India (airline code AI) and Air Canada (airline code AC) have entered in to a code-share agreement to place their airline codes on certain flights of operated by each other. Both the airlines are members of the Star alliance, and reflects for recently joined Air India, the first tangible benefits of joining the …
Read More »
Continuing our analysis in to national carrier Air India’s international operations which loses money on all but two flights, yesterday we published part 1 of the three part analysis which focussed on the numbers, today’s analysis comes from Bangalore Aviation guest analyst and former co-author Vinay Bhaskara. Vinay’s strength is finance, and he focusses on the costs of Air India. …
Read More »
Last week we reported on the massive loses made by national carrier Air India on 57 of its 59 international flights. Over the next few days we will bring you differing points of view on Air India’s international operations. Today is from a professional analyst at one of the world’s leading aviation consulting and advisory practices. He cannot be named …
Read More »
Bangalore Aviation News, Reviews, Analysis and opinions of Indian Aviation