19 Dec 2022

India Aviation Industry Newsletter

Air India has graduates first class of flight operations crew

The first class of trainee cabin crew members and a sizable group of new pilots since privatization have graduated announced Air India. Following intensive training, the batch of 215 cabin crew and 48 pilots, all of whom are citizens of India, obtained their wings and are now authorized to work as fully qualified crew. The training program comprised familiarization flights as well as thorough classroom and in-flight training at the airline's training facility in Mumbai. The new pilots, 40 men and 8 women, finished their training at the Air India training facility in Hyderabad, and they will start flying the Airbus A320 flee. Air India CEO & Managing Director Mr Campbell Wilson said, “We are delighted to welcome these new Air Indians to the team, handpicked from India’s growing pool of talent. Air India is hiring across all business areas, and from all parts of the country, to support our transformation and ambitions growth plans. Attracting and developing enthusiastic and capable people is an important and crucial part of our Vihaan.AI transformation program”.

BLR Airport sees a considerable increase in passenger volume

Due to the high traffic volumes observed in the current Financial Year FY 2023 until October 26, 2022, Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru (BLR Airport) declared that passenger traffic had returned to pre-Covid passenger levels. Compared to October 2019, traffic levels in October 2022 showed an increase of approximately 102% for domestic travel and about 85% for foreign travel. By the end of the last week of October, BLR Airport had received 16.30 million travellers, up from 6.61 million at the same time last year.

Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia inaugurates Digi Yatra facility at IGI Airport in New Delhi

On December 1st, New Delhi's IGI Airport's Digi Yatra facility was officially opened by Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia. In Delhi, Bangalore, and Varanasi, this facility is now available. The system offers contactless processing of air traveller’s using face recognition technology at multiple airport checkpoints. With the introduction of the Digi Yatra facility, India, according to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, has raised the bar for a smooth, trouble-free, and risk-free process at airports.

IndiGo inaugurates its second MRO facility at the Kempegowda International Airport

On November 17, IndiGo established a second maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) facility at the Kempegowda International Airport. The carrier’s second MRO repair facility at Bengaluru Airport is a 13,000 square meter hangar handles two Airbus A320/1 aircraft that is situated on five acres of land. Bengaluru International Airport Ltd. and IndiGo have agreed to a 20-year agreement for the use of the MRO facility.

Singapore Airlines And Tata Sons To Merge Air India And Vistara, Creating India’s Leading Airline Group

Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Tata Sons (Tata) announced they have reached an agreement to integrate Air India and Vistara. As part of the deal, SIA will also invest INR 20,585 million (S$360 million, US$250 million) in Air India. This would offer SIA a 25.1% interest in an expanded Air India group with a sizable presence in all important market segments. Subject to regulatory permissions, SIA and Tata aim to complete the merger by March 2024. Tata Sons Chairman Mr Natarajan Chandrasekaran, said “The merger of Vistara and Air India is an important milestone in our journey to make Air India a truly world-class airline. We are transforming Air India, with the aim of providing great customer experience, every time, for every customer. As part of the transformation, Air India is focusing on growing both its network and fleet, revamping its customer proposition, enhancing safety, reliability, and on-time performance.We are excited with the opportunity of creating a strong Air India which would offer both full-service and low-cost services across domestic and international routes. We would like to thank Singapore Airlines for their continued partnership.”

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