Aviation sector

"You are called upon to ensure that no such unilateral change is attempted, nor any of the so-called individual agreements are implemented, failing which, I am instructed by My Client to take all steps open to My Client to proceed against Air India, which shall be at Air India's risk and cost," the legal notice sent to the airline's Chief Human Resources Officer, Suresh Dutt Tripathi.

The primary bone of contention is the reduction in flying allowance from 70 hours to 40 hours every month under the new structure, which the pilots believe is unfair. The two unions have warned of possible 'industrial unrest' if the management goes ahead with the new terms without their consent. While Air India has stated that it will "continue to engage with the remainder of its staff", the airline has taken a tough stance on the issue, saying that there are "no recognised unions in Air India".

Despite healthy recovery in passenger traffic, the domestic aviation industry continues to face challenges on account of elevated ATF prices and depreciation of the Indian rupee with respect to the US dollar, both of which have a major bearing on the airlines' cost structure, said an ICRA report on domestic aviation sector.

The provision of night landing facility, which is purely based on the demand and operational requirements of the airlines, is a continuous process and is undertaken by Airports Authority of India (AAI) and other airport operators from time to time depending on the availability of land, commercial viability, socio-economic considerations, traffic demand and willingness of airlines to operate to/from such airports etc., said a written reply by the Ministry of Civil Aviation on Monday in Rajya Sabha.

The mechanism envisages imposition of penal rent and damage charges on the unauthorised occupants. Some employees of the erstwhile AIL are still in possession of the accommodations at the AI colonies. In view of this, Air India has implemented the mechanism on the unauthorised occupants of the AI colonies, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha on Monday.

As per a written reply by the Ministry of Civil Aviation in Rajya Sabha on Monday, at present, there are 148 operational airports in the country, which includes 137 airports, two water aerodromes and nine heliports. There were 96 operational airports of the Airports Authority of India as on March 2017.

According to data published by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday, nearly 1.21 crore passengers were carried by the domestic airlines in February as against 76.96 lakh in the same period last year. However, February's domestic traffic recorded a marginal decline as compared with the previous month when the figure was 1.25 crore.

The AAI has leased out eight of its airports - Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mangaluru, and Thiruvananthapuram through Public Private Partnership (PPP) for operation, management and development on a long-term lease basis.

In 2022, there were five fatal accidents involving loss of life to passengers and crew. This came down from seven in 2021 and an improvement on the five year average (2018-2022) which was also seven. The fatal accident rate improved to 0.16 per million sectors for 2022, from 0.27 per million sectors in 2021, and also was ahead of the five year fatal accident rate of 0.20, it said.

Six months into operations, the airline is operating more than 700 weekly flights across 14 domestic destinations including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Agartala, Goa, Vizag, Pune, Lucknow, Hyderabad and Varanasi across 23 unique routes. With 36 daily flights from Bengaluru, Akasa Air is the third largest domestic carrier in the city.