Page 14 - Aviation

Boeing's CEO to face questions about plane safety from US senators

US lawmakers are expected to press Boeing's chief executive on Tuesday about the company's latest plan to fix its manufacturing problems, and relatives of people who died in two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jetliners plan to be in the room, watching him. CEO David Calhoun is scheduled to appear before the Senate investigations subcommittee, which is chaired by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a Boeing critic. The hearing will mark the first appearance before Congress by Calhoun or any other high-ranking Boeing official since a panel blew out of a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. No one was seriously injured in the incident, but it raised fresh concerns about the company's best-selling commercial aircraft. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are conducting separate investigations. From the beginning, we took responsibility and cooperated transparently with the NTSB and the FAA, Calhoun said in remarks prepared for the

Gatwick Airport aims to double India traffic in 5 yrs: CCO Jonathan Pollard

Currently, a total of 24 flights per week are being operated between India and Gatwick Airport. Air India has been operating all 24 services since April last year

IndiGo to operate direct flights from Durgapur to Bhubaneswar, Bagdogra

Low-cost carrier IndiGo has announced new routes connecting Durgapur with Bhubaneswar, Bagdogra, and Guwahati. These new flights will commence on August 30, a statement by the airline said. Flights between Durgapur and Bhubaneswar will operate daily, Durgapur-Bagdogra four times a week, and Durgapur-Guwahati thrice a week, the statement added. Vinay Malhotra, head of global sales at IndiGo, said, "We are pleased to announce new routes connecting Durgapur with Bhubaneswar, Bagdogra, and Guwahati. With these direct flights, we aim to provide our customers with further seamless connectivity." With the addition of these services, IndiGo will now operate 42 weekly flights from Durgapur, significantly enhancing trade, travel, and tourism across eastern India, the statement said. The introduction of these flights will further strengthen the airline's domestic connectivity. Before the introduction of these new routes, travel between Durgapur and Bhubaneswar, Bagdogra, and Guwahati took ..

Europe's Airbus frets over global trade tensions amid EU-China spat

China has historically roughly split its import needs between Airbus and its US rival Boeing

Domestic air passenger traffic grows 5.1% to about 138.9 mn in May: ICRA

Domestic air passenger traffic grew 5.1 per cent year-on-year to an estimated 138.9 million in May and was significantly higher by around 14 per cent than pre-Covid levels, credit ratings agency Icra said on Thursday. Icra also said the outlook on the Indian aviation industry is stable amid the continued recovery in domestic and international air passenger traffic with a relatively stable cost environment and expectations of the trend continuing in FY2025. The airlines' capacity deployment in the previous month increased 6 per cent year-on-year and about 2 per cent higher than April 2024, it added. According to the agency, the domestic air passenger traffic for FY24 was around 154 million, with a year-on-year growth of around 13 per cent. It thus surpassed the pre-COVID levels of around 142 million in FY2020, the ratings agency said, adding that the international passenger traffic for Indian carriers stood at around 29.68 million last fiscal, registering a year-on-year growth of ..

737 MAX case: Boeing CEO to testify before US Senate panel on June 18

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in February barred Boeing from boosting 737 MAX production after a door panel blew out during a Jan 5 flight on a 737 MAX 9 operated by Alaska Airlines

IndiGo should not be branded as a low-cost carrier: CEO Pieter Elbers

A codeshare partnership between two carriers allows each airline to sell seats on the other's flights

Govt studying 300 airstrips to develop brownfield airports: Aviation secy

To meet the growing demand in the country's air travel market, Indian carriers have made four huge aircraft orders since last year

Japan Airlines signs a codeshare pact with IndiGo to expand its services

Japan Airlines on Monday said it has entered into a codeshare arrangement with IndiGo, which would help the Japanese carrier expand services to 14 destinations of the domestic carrier's network. At present, Japan Airlines operates its services to Delhi and Bengaluru from Tokyo. It offers daily flight services to the national capital from Haneda Airport, while its thrice-a-week services to Bengaluru are operated from Narita Airport. "Japan Airlines (JAL) and IndiGo have agreed on codeshare partnership which will benefit the customers by providing more travel options between Japan and India," a statement said. The codeshare partnership will allow Japan Airlines to strengthen its connectivity into India initially, while enabling more travel options for IndiGo customers on JAL's extensive domestic and international network in later phases, the statement said. The partnership will enable codeshare on India routes that connect to JAL-operated flights from/to Delhi and Bengaluru, as per t

Global airlines raise profit outlook for 2024, projects $1 trn in revenue

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said it expected the worldwide industry to generate $30.5 billion of profit this year

Increasing flights, more observations of clear air amid turbulence scare

As more and more flights criss-cross the skies, there are more observations of clear air turbulence, which has increased over the decades very likely due to climate change, and airlines are continuing with efforts to mitigate the impact of turbulence. Though rare, a Singapore Airlines flight from London to Singapore experienced severe turbulence on May 20 that caused the death of a passenger and left more than 70 people injured. While investigation is still on, the incident has also brought the focus on turbulence, especially the factors of climate change and Clear Air Turbulence (CAT). In recent weeks, there have also been other incidents of turbulence. Generally, CAT is defined as any turbulence where there is no cloudiness, and is invisible, which also makes detection difficult by pilots and radars in an aircraft. "While variations in climate can cause variations in CAT, a robust increase in CAT over decades is very likely to be because of climate change," Manoj Joshi, a Profess

Airlines ride AI: Less work for agents, human-like responses for passengers

From human-like responses to reduced workload for customer service agents to utilisation of trillions of parameters for answering air passengers' queries, artificial intelligence is providing the technological tailwinds for Indian airlines as they cater to rising traffic. For Air India, which has embarked on a five-year transformation plan, Artificial Intelligence (AI) use will be "pervasive" and its generative AI virtual agent AI.g handles over 1,300 topics. And the country's largest airline IndiGo has AI chatbot 6Eskai that has 1.7 trillion parameters, allowing it to answer questions with ease. Also, the bot can understand written, typed language, and verbal instructions using speech-to-text models. Akasa Air, which describes itself as a "cloud-native and digital-native brand", said it will continue to invest heavily in proven technology solutions across all business functions. India, one of the world's fastest growing civil aviation markets, is seeing rising domestic air traffi

FAA to not allow Boeing to boost 737 MAX production due to safety issues

The FAA's enhanced oversight of Boeing will continue in the coming months, with weekly meetings and quarterly exchanges between the heads of the company and the US regulator

Universal Vulkaan to bring 30 Leonardo helicopters to India in next 3 years

Bullish on the Indian market which is "ready for expansion", Universal Vulkaan Aviation on Wednesday said it will bring 30 Leonardo helicopters into the country over the next three years. Universal Vulkaan Aviation Pte Ltd (UVA) is the distributor in India for Italy-based Leonardo Helicopters. The company, which is based in New Delhi, will bring a total of 30 helicopters -- 16 new and 14 from the pre-owned market -- over the next three years. "After signing the pre-sales contract for 5 units of AW09 machines in January 2024, UVA has ordered 11 units from types AW109 Trekker, AW139, AW169, from the Leonardo Helicopters... This is in addition to the 14 helicopters that were purchased by the Vulkaan Group from the pre-owned market, which include the AW 119Kx and AW 109 Trekker," a release said. The models have seating capacities varying from 5 to 15. Karan Sethi, Sales Director at UVA, told PTI that the current Indian market is ready for expansion, and its product portfolio in both .

Boeing sees negative free cash flow in 2024 as deliveries remain sluggish

Top U.S. enforcement officials are also weighing whether to charge the company for violating an agreement that shielded it from prosecution stemming from previous jet crashes in 2018 and 2019

Boeing faces 'long road' on safety issues after door accident: US FAA

In late February, FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker gave Boeing 90 days to develop a comprehensive plan to address 'systemic quality-control issues' and barred it from expanding 737 MAX production

Experts start probe into turbulence incident, S'pore Airlines cooperating

Singapore Airlines on Wednesday said it is fully cooperating with relevant authorities in the investigation into the London to Singapore flight which encountered severe turbulence, leading to the death of one passenger and injuring 30 others. Geoffrey Kitchen, a 73-year-old British passenger, died likely due to a heart attack on the flight, said Kittipong Kittikachorn, general manager of Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, to where the SIA flight was on Tuesday diverted under emergency. As many as 30 passengers have been receiving treatment for their injuries in hospitals in Bangkok after the Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight SQ321, operating from London (Heathrow) to Singapore on May 20 encountered "sudden extreme turbulence over the Irrawaddy Basin at 37,000 feet about 10 hours after departure". The remaining passengers aboard the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft carrying 229 people were examined and treated at the airport, the carrier said. SIA is fully cooperating with the relevant ...

Indian aviation industry suffers from low penetration despite rise in seats

India's total airline seats have doubled in a decade. So, why is the country not seen as realising its aviation potential?

Baggage delivery time at 6 major airports improves significantly: MoCA

The baggage delivery time at Delhi, Mumbai and four other major airports has improved significantly in the last four months, with more than 90 per cent of the passengers getting their baggage arriving within 30 minutes of an aircraft landing, according to the civil aviation ministry. The ministry has also advised all domestic and international airlines operating at other airports to improve baggage delivery timings. In January, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) started an exercise to boost the baggage delivery system of the domestic airlines at the country's six major airports -- Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. The exercise under the aegis of the civil aviation ministry was started after it was noticed that baggage was getting delivered late after the landing of a plane. As per the global standards prescribed by IATA (International Air Transport Association) and the provision under the OMDA (Operation, Management and Development Agreement) with

US Prez Biden signs sweeping aviation safety, reform bill into law

Biden has repeatedly clashed with air carriers, calling for new stricter consumer rules and harshly criticizing them for imposing fees