Category Archives: Aviation

As per relief in guidelines given by Health and Family Ministry, airlines need not provide safety gears like masks, hand sanitizers, face shields or body covers to passengers. However, airlines need to ensure that passengers board aircrafts with their masks covering both mouth and nose. Travelers are required to follow Covid-appropriate behavior of wearing mask, hand hygiene and physical distancing.

Air Tanzania has announced the resumption of its services between India and Tanzania. The first flight out of DAR was on 30th August, 2021 and return from Mumbai was on 31st August 2021. To start with, this will be a bi-weekly service every Tuesday and Saturday out of Mumbai with convenient departure timings of 05.50 hours arriving in Dar es Salaam at 09.20 hours. It will operate B787-800 new Dreamliner aircraft. Once the situation normalises, the flights are likely to increase to thrice a week.

According to Ministry of Civil Aviation’s (MoCA’s) latest notification, India has started flights between 49 cities under the Air Bubble arrangement with 18 countries in September. These special flights will be operated by airlines under an air-bubble pact between two countries, their territories. The schedule of these flights is available only till September 30.

The first passenger flight has taken off from Tezu, Arunachal Pradesh to Guwahati, Assam under the UDAN initiative to improve the air connectivity in the Northeastern Region, it was revealed in a tweet by the DoNER Ministry. Tezu is believed to be a stunning location to explore and it is believed that the flight service will make a comfortable trip for travellers and pilgrims in North East Region.

The latest Boeing 737 model is equipped with a manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system (MCAS), which is responsible for pushing the aircraft’s nose down when it senses a high angle of attack that may lead to an aircraft stall. Aviation safety regulator DGCA on Thursday allowed operations of Boeing 737 MAX planes, which were banned almost two-and-a-half years ago following two deadly crashes of this model that together killed 330 people. With India opening up the skies for the 737 MAX planes, China remains the only major aviation market to still have a ban in place.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has opened applications for tourist visas from all countries starting August 30. As per the new UAE travel guidelines, tourists will need to be vaccinated with one of the Covid-19 vaccine shots approved by the World Health Organization (WHO). This also applies to tourist visa holders from countries where travel to the UAE is restricted, authorities announced on Saturday.

Air Austral has officially received the first of the three A220-300s it ordered from Airbus in October 2019. The A220-300 acquisition process was successfully finalised on 27th July 2021. The second and third aircraft will be delivered shortly. Air Austral is continuing with its progressive strategy and is now the first French airline to have added this type of latest-generation aircraft to its fleet. The three new aircraft will streamline and modernise Air Austral’s medium-haul fleet by replacing two Boeing 737-800NGs and the ATR 72-500. “The arrival of this new aircraft is a significant moment for Air Austral, even more so in the current health crisis which we have been enduring for more than a year now. I would like to thank and congratulate the teams and partners who made this important and strategic acquisition possible for Air Austral, and for its future. This is an essential and responsible investment for us: the Airbus A220-300 will open up new horizons for us. It is the aircraft we needed to reinforce our pioneering position in the Indian Ocean and offer long-term profitability. The A220-300’s level of comfort and performance means that we have been able to make a major leap in operational and environmental efficiency. Our regional service is going from strength to strength. We look forward to sharing this new travel experience with our customers and will do so once the health situation improves. We are, more than ever before, ready for business recovery.” Marie-Joseph Malé, Air Austral CEO “We extend a warm welcome to Air Austral, who has just joined the ever-growing community of A220 customers and operators. With the efficient A220, Air Austral will be able to extend …

FM Nirmala Sitharaman has launched the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) that will include the government’s four-year plan to monetise its brownfield infrastructure assets. For this project, the Centre has finalised Rs 6 lakh crore worth infrastructure assets that will be monetised. The list includes a range of assets. Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, has said, “15 railway stadiums, 25 airports and the stake of central government in existing airports will be up for monetisation.”

SriLankan Airlines, in a bid to promote greater travel opportunities from India to Sri Lanka, has announced adding more destinations and frequencies. It currently operates four flights a week from Chennai, three flights a week from Mumbai, and once a week from Bengaluru to its hub in Colombo. It will be introducing a host of frequency enhancements out of key Indian cities effective September 1, 2021. SriLankan Airlines wishes to inform the travel trade partners across India that from September, the airline will resume services between Colombo and the Indian points: Madurai, Tiruchirappalli, Trivandrum and Cochin with flights once a week, whilst Hyderabad and New Delhi will be connected to Colombo with twice-weekly flights. Further, the airlines’ operations out of Chennai and Mumbai will expand up to five times a week whilst its Bengaluru-Colombo services will be enhanced to flights three times a week.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has appointed Nasir Kamal, IPS (UP:86) to the post of Director General in Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) for a tenure up to his superannuation on 31 .07.2022, or until further orders, whichever is earlier.  BCAS is the regulatory authority for civil aviation security in India. Director General, Bureau of Civil Aviation is responsible for the development, implementation and maintenance of the National Civil Aviation Security Programme(NCASP).