Airlines Financial News

A record number of passengers traveled through U.S. airports over Thanksgiving weekend, the Transportation Security Administration said Monday

Air India completes two years under the Tata group’s ownership, its CEO Campbell Wilson has found that his job is mostly a balance between fighting the airline’s existing legacy issues and exploiting its tremendous future potential. In a recent interview, Wilson spoke to ET about the progress Air India is making in its long, arduous journey to regaining its long-lost status as a globally relevant airline. Edited excerpts: Q1) Let’s start with Air India’s transformation project. The first phase was taxi, which was focussed on legacy issues. The airline is six months into the next phase which is called takeoff, which is focused on developing the platforms, processes and systems needed to build a product of exellence. Where is Air India at right now and how do the next 100 days look like? Ans: We have a five-year roadmap called Vihaan, which has three phases.

InterGlobe Aviation Limited, the parent company of IndiGo, Monday said the airline has introduced an AI chatbot 6Eskai to elevate its customer service experience. The Gurgaon based low-cost airline said the internally developed AI chatbot has shown promising early results by making booking process simpler with the use of natural language conversations resulting in a 75% reduction in customer service agent workload.

A Dubai-bound business jet from Europe flew into Iranian airspace with no clearance in September—due to a false signal on the aircraft navigation system. After about 20 planes faced similar issues, the Indian aviation regulator issued an advisory last week. Mint explains: It has to do with interference with the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), a key technology used for navigation and communication.

Some 2,100 flight attendants at Air Transat have a strike mandate heading into the busy holiday season, according to the union representing the airline’s workers.

IndiGo on Monday launched an AI chatbot, 6Eskai, which efficiently addresses customer queries in 10 different languages and boasts to offer a unique platform for booking tickets across the entire network. The airline also said that this chatbot is powered by the groundbreaking GPT-4 technology which is developed by IndiGo's digital team and Microsoft. The 6Eskai has managed to reduce 75 per cent of customer service agent workload, the airline said as indicated from the soft launch.

IndiGo has launched an AI chatbot, 6Eskai, powered by the GPT-4 technology with an aim to address travellers' queries in 10 different languages and to offer a first of its kind platform for booking tickets across the entire network. The airline spokesperson said that developed entirely in-house by IndiGo's digital team, in close collaboration with Microsoft, the AI chatbot represents a significant milestone for the airline.

IndiGo flight from Pune to Nagpur. Instead of finding her seat intact, she discovered that half of her seat was missing. Sagarika, who was traveling for work on flight 6E-6798 in the early hours of Sunday, was allocated seat number 10A by the airline. Upon reaching her seat, Sagarika was shocked to find the cushion missing. She immediately informed one of the cabin crew members, who simply advised her to check beneath the seat. Despite her efforts, Sagarika was unable to locate the cushion. As a result, she had to stand in the aisle, causing inconvenience to other passengers while boarding was still in progress. Eventually, a crew member provided a spare cushion from another seat. Sagarika and her husband, Subrat Patnaik, expressed their disappointment, stating that such incidents should not be expected from a reputed airline like IndiGo.

Air India is in talks with aerospace majors, including L3Harris and Airbus, as potential partners for its big crew training facility and will be disclosing more details in January, CEO and MD Campbell Wilson said in a recent interview. People in the know said the companies will likely be making strategic investments in the $200-million facility. «We are partnering with a couple of OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to set up simulator training centres: Airbus, Boeing L3Harris. We will be talking a little more about that in January,» said Wilson. He didn't elaborate on the nature of the partnership of investment from partners. L3Harris, formed in 2019 by the merger of American companies L3 Technologies and Harris Corp, has business interests in segments including aerospace communications, integrated mission systems, space and airborne systems. The training centre would be critical for training pilots to fly the large number of planes the airline will receive over the next five years, starting December.

Air India aircraft that was to fly to Delhi returned to Kathmandu airport on Saturday evening after pilots heard a noise while taking off, according to an airline official. Also, prior to taking off, it was noticed after boarding passengers that a door in the aircraft was unserviceable. The plane was cleared for take-off after following necessary airworthiness protocols.

₹2.59 lakh crore in the five recently concluded mainboard initial public offerings (IPOs). The week-long bidding frenzy gripped investors as the five companies -Tata Technologies Ltd., Gandhar Oil Refineries Ltd., Fedbank Financial Services Ltd., Flair Writing Industries Ltd, and Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) Ltd sustained the IPO pulse in India's primary markets. Read more The Indian civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation has issued an advisory to Indian airlines on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) interference in airspace.

Thailand extends visa-free entry to Indian and Taiwanese tourists for six months Air India holds an advantage over IndiGo in terms of transferring passengers, as all its operations are under one roof. However, for international-to-international transfers, both airlines stand on equal footing. Seven of Thailand's top ten source markets are Asian countries, with the remaining three being Germany, the UK, and the USA.

Right-wing populist Javier Milei has been president-elect just four days and already Argentina’s unions and social organizations are vowing pushback and even protests if he makes good on his promises to slash the size of the state and privatize companies

Civil Aviation regulator DGCA has released a circular to airlines and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to deal with fake GPS signals that overpower a flight's own navigation system and divert it from its intended path. Increasing number of reports have suggested that Indian airlines and aircrafts have been facing incidences of GPS spoofing and jamming when they fly over parts of the Iraq-Iran area. «Considering the increasing reports of GNSS (global navigation satellite system) interference over airspace in the Middle East in the recent past, DGCA had formed an internal committee on October 4.

Sunil Koul, Executive Director (Asia Pacific Portfolio Strategy, Global Macro Research), Goldman Sachs, says while high-end consumption has been holding up pretty well, there’s some some weakness in mass market consumption. We are hearing from the companies that things are bottoming out and not worsening. So, consumption and at least the volume growth for the staple companies will improve in coming quarters.” A lot of the corporates that we have been speaking with are alluding to the fact that even despite the festive season, etc, there has not really been any incremental pick up in consumption patterns all around. Rural is lagging a little bit, maybe the premiumisation trend is playing out. What is making you optimistic on consumption as a long-term story? There are a couple of things on the consumption side. I think the high-end consumption has been holding up pretty well there. If you look at the mass market consumption and the lower consumption as you mentioned, obviously there has been some weakness in there, part of that is because of the higher inflation starting to impact consumer wallets, part of it is obviously the monsoons which were subpar.

Atletico Madrid, the renowned Spanish football club, is suing Singapore-based crypto exchange WhaleFin, following the unexpected termination of its $44 million shirt sponsorship deal.

(Reuters) — Airline operator Virgin Australia on Friday said it has added six Boeing (NYSE:BA) MAX-8 aircraft to further expand its fleet and meet travel demand, taking its total order for the planes to fourteen.

Central Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank and Deutsche Bank are among the airline's creditors. Jindal Power, the sole company whose expression of interest to take over Go First was accepted by creditors, also decided to not follow through with a bid, Reuters reported.

IndiGo on Thursday said its flight from Jeddah to Hyderabad was diverted to Karachi on Wednesday due to medical emergency for a passenger who was declared dead on arrival. After completing the formalities, the flight landed in Hyderabad on Thursday morning.

lenders will vote on a proposal to liquidate the insolvent Indian airline, two banking sources told Reuters on Thursday, days after a deadline to bid for the company ended with no suitors.«The proposal whether or not to liquidate the airline has been floated and individual lenders will take the proposal to their boards and submit final votes in 10-15 days,» said a banker with a state-run bank that has exposure to Go First.

Holiday travelers are starting their final sprint