New Delhi: Seventy five years after her disappearance and 115 years following her birth, Google is honouring the pioneering American aviator (and author) Amelia Earhart. The aviation heroine's end still remains an enigma. The doodle on Amelia Earhart's 115th birth anniversary shows her climbing up her Lockheed Vega 5B monoplane, Earhart's yellow scarf fluttering in the wind. The Google letters take the place of the original registration number of the...
12:01 AM, Jul 23, 2012
New Delhi: India could face the possibility of downgrading of its aviation safety system by the US if it did not take urgent steps to strengthen institutions like DGCA to meet the challenges of a fast-growing air traffic, an aviation consultancy group has said. In 2009, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), concerned by what it considered to be gross under-staffing of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), had...
02:41 PM, Jul 22, 2012
New Delhi: India could face the possibility of downgrading of its aviation safety system by the US if it did not take urgent steps to strengthen institutions like DGCA to meet the challenges of a fast-growing air traffic, an aviation consultancy group has said. In 2009, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), concerned by what it considered to be gross under-staffing of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), had...
02:41 PM, Jul 22, 2012
New Delhi: After the sacking of 101 pilots during the recent 58-day strike, Air India on Friday said it has received representations from 34 of them expressing willingness to join duty. While nine sacked pilots on Thursday sent in representations against termination of their services and stating their willingness to resume work, 25 such representations were received today by the management of the national carrier, official sources said. The protracted...
08:38 PM, Jul 20, 2012
New Delhi: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Friday said that domestic airfares were unlikely to go down to the 2011 levels any time soon. However, it said, the fares may soften with a decline in demand. The DGCA said that higher operational cost and airport charges were responsible for the higher fares, although insisting that they were still within the prescribed band. The airfares this year have...
12:43 PM, Jul 20, 2012
New Delhi: FDI in retail may be a reality by August 15 as the government is working towards building a consensus on the issue. An indication to this effect came on a day when Tata group Chairman Ratan Tata called for an urgent need to push reforms and the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) ordered simpler security clearance for projects and set up a Project Clearance Board under the Cabinet Secretary....
04:44 PM, Jul 19, 2012
Bangalore: Vulture Aviation, a team of Class XII students of Bishop Cotton Boys School, has qualified for competition conducted by NASA. The team is among the three from across Asia, which have qualified for the final round of International Space Settlement Design Competition conducted by NASA. Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, the 12 students said they would participate in the finals to be held on July 29 and...
02:01 PM, Jul 19, 2012
Bangalore: Some wings of national carrier Air India would soon be hived off to right-size its staff strength and monetise its assets for an early turn-around, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said on Tuesday. "As part of the Rs 30,000-crore ($5.5 billion) turn-around package, Air India's engineering and ground support units will be hived off into separate entities to reduce its employee ratio per aircraft and make it more efficient...
10:15 PM, Jul 17, 2012
New Delhi: Air fares have shot up in the past fortnight mainly on account of crisis in Kingfisher Airlines but the aviation regulator DGCA on Monday said the hike did not indicate any "alarming trend". Following the reports, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) studied the recent pricing trends and "concluded that the air fare offered by various scheduled domestic airlines on different sectors remained within the fare bands...
07:05 PM, Jul 16, 2012
New Delhi: EK Bharat Bhushan, who was abruptly shunted out as the Director General of Civil Aviation recently, is being shifted to the Steel Ministry, official sources said on Friday. Bhushan will take over as Additional Secretary and Financial Adviser (AS&FA) in the Steel Ministry, swapping postings with Machendranathan who would join the Civil Aviation Ministry in his position as Additional secretary. Both Bhushan and Machendranathan belong to the 1979...
08:28 PM, Jul 13, 2012
New Delhi: Conciliation talks between the Air India management and the pilots before the Deputy Chief Labour Commission concluded on Thursday and the report will be submitted to the Delhi High Court on Friday. The airline management is understood to have made submissions during the parleys on major issues, including reinstatement of 101 sacked pilots, on which the aviators had some reservations. On the second day of negotiations yesterday, there...
09:53 PM, Jul 12, 2012
New Delhi: Serious questions are now being raised against Union Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh. Is air safety being compromised to shield Kingfisher Airlines? CNN-IBN has accessed the file noting of former DGCA E K Bharat Bhushan that makes it clear that the DGCA boss was sacked a day after he drafted a warning to kingfisher airlines threatening termination of licence. The file noting signed by Bhushan says, "Kingfisher has...
09:34 PM, Jul 12, 2012
New Delhi: Director General of Civil Aviation Bharat Bhushan was reportedly sacked soon after signing a letter terminating Kingfisher Airlines' licence for not paying its employees for several months. The letter terminating Kingfisher's licence was signed by Bhushan for not complying with several assurances that the operator had given that all its employees would be paid their salaries and dues. However, speaking to CNBC-TV18 Bhushan said that he had not...
06:52 PM, Jul 11, 2012
New Delhi: In a new twist to the row over the removal of Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), it has now come to the light that the extension given to Bharat Bhushan as DGCA was cleared by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and there was nothing wrong with the decision given by the Appointments Committee of Cabinet. Sources say that the extension was done with the approval of all the...
05:47 PM, Jul 11, 2012
New Delhi: Former Civil Aviation minister Vayalar Ravi on Wednesday said that the sacking of DGCA Bharat Bhushan came as a surprise to him as Bhushan was "one of the finest officers" he had known. "Bharat Bhushan is one of the finest officers... He believes in norms. When I was incharge of Civil Aviation, he took all efforts to check corrupt practices... agents. He never spared Air India. I gave...
02:27 PM, Jul 11, 2012
New Delhi: The extension of Bharat Bhushan's tenure as the Director General of Civil Aviation was a procedural mistake, according to sources. The man who took on corruption in aviation, Bharat Bhushan, was suddenly removed as the DGCA on Tuesday, a week after his tenure was extended by the Cabinet. While Civil Aviation minister Ajit Singh refused to react, the Civil Aviation Ministry sources say that the extension was sought...
01:50 PM, Jul 11, 2012
New Delhi: The man who took on corruption in the aviation sector, Bharat Bhushan, was suddenly removed as the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Tuesday. This came a week after his tenure was extended till the end of this year by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. While the reason for his removal has not been specified, sources in the DGCA say that two days ago Bhushan had...
09:14 AM, Jul 11, 2012
New Delhi: Conciliation talks between the Air India management and pilots, who went on a 58-day strike in support of their career progression issues, started on Tuesday. The parleys, which were held before the Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner, came in the backdrop of Delhi High Court asking both sides to hold talks on daily basis and report back to it on July 13. Sources said both sides stuck to their...
10:11 PM, Jul 10, 2012
Before we answer that question, let's first survey the grim reality. For the past five months, about 4,500 employees of the airline haven't been paid their salary. Many of them say they can't quit because they won't get a single dime out of their dues from their employer. Airports, which allowed the red and white aircraft to land and take off, haven't been paid either. Faced with the spectre of...
11:35 AM, Jul 09, 2012
New Delhi: Hours after promising that they would return to work, the striking Air India pilots are now refusing to end their strike despite assurances from the management. They had earlier promised the Delhi High Court that they would return to work within the next 48 hours. Representatives of the pilots on strike had even said that 434 pilots would give affidavits indicating their willingness to return to work. The...
08:56 PM, Jul 03, 2012
