Emergency Landing called up by Indian Airlines

Hyderabad-Tirupati flight of Indian Airlines called up for emergency landing after an hour of panic at the Shamshabad International Airport after 15 minutes of take off. The flight IC 942, took off from the airport at 1:40 pm and soon after that pilot noticed a technical fault and informed the airport authorities about the need of emergency landing.

The flight was permitted to land at 1:55 pm, all the 135 passengers on board were safe. After all this the passengers were sent to Tirupati by an alternative Indian airlines flight around 3:40 pm. The Minister for Endowments was among the passengers but was not available to comment on the situation.

Air India to join Star Alliance by year 2010

Air India has to join Star Alliance by March’09 but now it has been delayed by a year, and it will join Star by 2010. According to an official the earlier merger of Air India and Indian Airlines has not been found useful yet, as there has been a confusion about the work duties between the two airlines. The Star and Air India has to integrate their IT platforms under one common system , but Air India still hasn’t confirmed about which platform they will be using.


A news report by a Delhi based news agency suggests that Ministry of Civil Aviation is found to be upset that talks are on with Jet Airways to join Star, as it would put Air India at a disadvantage. A Jet spokesperson said that the Jet Airways was evaluating various options, over the years Jet has decided not to align itself to a specific alliance rather go with code sharing and independent alliances. Star, at the onset, had not ruled out other Indian partners.

Airlines affected after Rupee hit a record low of Rs 51.92 per dollar

There has been seen a fall in Rupee, domestic airlines are likely to revise all their targets, as 30% of expenses of airlines are denominated in dollars. Airlines such as Jet Airways, Spice Jet, Air India and Kingfisher airlines usually make their payments in dollars towards the rentals of their leased aircrafts, maintenance, foreign crew and pilots. Rupee can touch 54 by the end of this month; this has been predicted by some financial firms.

Airlines pay a rental of Rs 40 Lac for the single aircraft, which has now increased to Rs 50 Lac due to the decrease in value of a rupee. This has affected many things including parking, employee costs and navigation charges. The fall in rupee is definitely going to play a major role in this year’s losses in airlines industry. The losses have been estimated for this year, it would be Rs 10,000 crores which is more than double of last year’s losses which was 4,000 crores.

India still in decision making mode to allow Overseas stake in Local carriers

Overseas airline code-sharing agreements with various Indian domestic carriers have made India to examine a plan for allowing the overseas airlines to buy a stake in local airlines. The plans will definitely going to benefit the airlines specially the airlines faced losses last year such as Jet Airways and Spice Jet. India currently will permit 49% stake in Indian carrier and no direct or indirect dealing will be allowed. The Minister stated, India will look into any attempt at cartelization. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation is inquiring into cartelization allegations after some airlines made coordinated fare increases earlier this month.


The recession has definitely affected the airlines industry for that the Civil Aviation Minister has ruled out the establishment of a stabilization fund sought by Indian carriers. A stabilization fund of $2 billion for 3- 5 years, interest free loans has been asked by the Government.

British Airways to strike a code-sharing agreement with Go Air

British Airways will soon strike a code sharing, co-branding and marketing agreement with GoAir. This would lead to an equity stake in Go Air by British Airways. By this code-sharing agreement both the airlines will get equally benefited, BA can mark its reputation in Indian market and Go Air can do the same in international market. BA is the largest passenger’s contributor after US so; this is definitely going to help Airlines industry in India. The deal would benefit Go Air by $350 million which is definitely a huge profit to the airlines. For this deal Go Air has appointed a London based Bank Euromax Capital for the transaction.

Indian Government is also looking forward to this agreement between the foreign airlines with domestic flights India. Earlier Royal Bank Scotland and Standard chartered were the two banks which were supposed to make an equity investment into GoAir. The IATA in response has said that 2009 will be the worse year than 2008 in terms of number of passengers and yield, so in these conditions a foreign airline having an equity share in Indian airline is definitely going to lessen the effect of recession in the market of airlines industry.