Airlines Financial News

₹144.51 crore, the latest escalation in a decade-long dispute with former promoter Kalanithi Maran and KAL Airways Pvt. Ltd.The case concerns enforcement of payment obligations arising from a 2018 arbitral award linked to the airline’s 2015 ownership transfer.

New Delhi: With just a month left in the financial year, India has operationalized only four airports under its regional air connectivity scheme UDAN—the lowest number added in a single fiscal year since the programme began nine years ago.However, the civil aviation ministry denied that there was any loss in momentum in adding UDAN airports.UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) was central to the government’s push to expand aviation beyond the large cities and make air travel accessible and affordable for everyone in the country. However, data submitted by the ministry of civil aviation in Parliament show that airport additions under UDAN have declined steadily after peaking early.Airports operationalized this year were those at Amravati in Maharashtra, Purnea in Bihar and Datia and Satna in Madhya Pradesh.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A global technology outage involving airline reservation platform Navitaire briefly disrupted operations of carriers including IndiGo and Akasa Air on Thursday morning, before systems were restored within about half an hour, according to two people familiar with the matter. No major flight delays were reported.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI : India’s largest airline, IndiGo, has sought approval to operate at least 275 additional daily flights, about a 15% increase over its current 1,900-odd departures, during the summer schedule from April to October, according to a presentation made to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). If approved, the airline would operate around 2,175 daily flights—about 8% higher than the 2,022 flights it flew last summer.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. WASHINGTON—Tim and Sheri Lilley watched as a video on a large screen displayed the final seconds of their son’s life. Gray shading marked the contours of a cockpit window.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Five foreign freighters, including FedEx and a DHL joint venture, are expected to begin operations at Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA), from May, two cargo officials familiar with the matter told Mint. This comes nearly three months before cargo-carrying planes temporarily cease operations at Mumbai International Airport from 1 August.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Daily life in Cuba is grinding to a halt under a U.S. campaign to block the island’s oil imports, drawing international criticism that the Trump administration is pushing the island toward a humanitarian crisis with no clear endgame.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India has secured lower tariffs from the US with the first phase of a bilateral trade agreement, but details shared last week, especially by Washington and President Donald Trump, have raised questions about the deal’s sustainability. Three issues sit at the core: Can India realistically buy $500 billion worth of US goods over five years? Has it committed to halting oil imports from Russia? And does the deal shield India from future tariff hikes or trade restrictions? Each of these questions highlights the gap between the deal’s promises and the practical challenges ahead.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: After nearly two years of delivery disruptions, Akasa Air is emerging from aircraft supply constraints, an inflexion point that allows India’s third-largest airline to restart pilot hiring, stick to its original growth plan and avoid costly short-term fixes in a fiercely competitive aviation market. “So I’d say that’s a thing of the past," Vinay Dube, the founder and chief executive officer of Akasa Air, said in an interview with Mint, referring to earlier delays.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Making passenger planes is an exceptionally daunting task. There are safety requirements and complex systems, not to mention sky-high costs.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Fifteen months after launch of its loyalty initiative, IndiGo counts 10 million people on its BluChip programme, bringing the Gurugram-based airline at par with Air India's frequent flyer scheme, as the country’s two largest airlines battle it out for more customers. InterGlobe Aviation-run IndiGo, which launched its BluChip programme in September 2024, 107million passengers in calendar year 2025, data from India's aviation regulator show.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI/ MUMBAI : The Competition Commission of India (CCI), the country's competition watchdog, has ordered an anti-trust investigation into IndiGo for alleged abuse of dominant position following large-scale flight cancellations and sharp fare increases in December. CCI has observed that passengers were “left with no real choice but to accept last-minute cancellations" and were forced to seek alternatives “at significantly higher prices".

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. IndiGo, the largest airline in India by market share, has appointed veteran of loyalty programmes Nik Laming to lead its frequent-flyer business, as the airline seeks to shift from its low-cost roots to defend its market share against feisty Air India. Laming, a Singapore-based consultant with over 30 years of experience, joins at a critical time.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. About the author: Clifford Winston is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Market Corrections Not Government Interventions: A Path to Improve the U.S. Economy. In 1977, a swashbuckling British entrepreneur named Freddy Laker launched the Skytrain, a no-frills, low-fare flight between London and New York.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Hyderabad: India's top airlines IndiGo, Air India and Akasa Air may together add 240 aircraft in the next two years, expanding their fleet size by a combined 30%. Currently, the three carriers have a combined strength of 804, a number which may swell to 1,044 by the end of 2027.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. HYDERABAD: Gautam Adani-owned Navi Mumbai International Airport expects to start international operations by June, after obtaining clearance for night flying operations in the next month, the company’s top executive said. “We are in the process of getting the night flight permit, after which the next step will be to start 24-hour domestic operations and in the first quarter of FY27 we will start international operations," Arun Bansal, chief executive officer of Adani Airport Holdings Ltd, told Mint at the Wings India 2026 event in Hyderabad on Wednesday.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. On 27 January 2022, the government sold its beleaguered airline Air India to the Tata Group. Four years later, the airline is in better shape, on a path of consolidation, growth, and repair.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Is India’s civil aviation crunch a thing of the past? Signals from IndiGo, the airline around which last month’s crisis of flight cancellations swirled, suggest it will soon be. As do public assurances of a return to normalcy from this sector’s regulator.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A Bengaluru resident had travelled to Chennai for a visa appointment that was unexpectedly delayed. As a result, the person missed a return train and had to take a last-minute flight to make it back in time for work.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi/Mumbai: As IndiGo, the country’s largest airline by market share, announces its December-quarter earnings on Thursday, the focus will be on the operational disruptions last month that unsettled passengers, regulators, and investors alike. The airline, with 63% market share, cancelled about 4,500 flights in the first week of December as it scrambled to adjust schedules to comply with revised flight duty time limitation (FDTL) norms for pilots.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Civil aviation minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu often highlights India’s rapid pace of airport creation—one new airport every 45–50 days.