ICAO to recognise Indian aviation under 'no country left behind' safety initiative

New Delhi: India will next week get recognised by United Nations’ (UN) aviation arm, international civil aviation organisation (ICAO), under its "no country is left behind" initiative. In the past few years, Indian aviation has seen a number of audits by ICAO and the US federal aviation administration (FAA) that led to question marks. India has been trying to resolve those issues and now the top aviation authorities — led by minister H S Puri, secretary P S Kharola and directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) chief Arun Kumar will be in Montreal, ICAO headquarters, to attend its 40th session of its assembly and receive the award.
“…in recognition of your state’s (India) progress in resolving its safety oversight deficiencies and improving the effective implementation (EI) of applicable ICAO standards and recommended practices during 2018, (India) has been elected to receive a Council President Certificate. (This award) was established in support of the ‘no country left behind’ initiative,” ICAO council president Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu said in a letter to aviation authorities on June 20.
“It will be an honour to recognize your state by presenting the Council President Certificate to you at a special ceremony that will be held at ICAO HQ in Montreal during the 40th session of the Assembly (September 24-October 4, 2019),” it adds.
21/09/19 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Steady fall in volume of domestic air fliers in last four months: DGCA data

New Delhi: Amidst the reports of slowdown gripping various sectors, the number of domestic air-passengers has shown a steady decline in the last four months.

Indian airlines carried 117.93 lakh passengers in August, down from 121.87 lakh passengers in May.

The data released by the aviation regulator DGCA on Thursday showed that the number of domestic air-passengers in last few months saw some rise when compared with last year.

The DGCA said that passengers carried during Jan-Aug, 2019 were 943.58 lakh as against 913.95 lakh during the corresponding period of the previous year, registering an annual growth of 3.24 per cent and monthly growth of 3.87 per cent.
The year-on-year monthly growth in a number of air-passengers in July was 3.01 per cent and 6.19 per cent in June. The aviation sector suffered a major jolt after the shutdown of Jet Airways.

The year-on-year monthly growth was -4.5 per cent in April, but it rose to 2.79 per cent in May. Air-passengers volume in May was 121.87 lakh and down to 120.25 lakh in June, 119.05 lakh in July and 117.93 lakh in August. But, corresponding data of last year show that there was no steady trend.

In  August, IndiGo carried 55.41 lakh passengers,  SpiceJet 18.34 lakh, Air India 15.15 lakh, Go Air 13.91 lakh, Air Asia 7.63 lakh and Vistara 6.84 lakh.

IndiGo’s market share was 47 per cent versus 47.8 per cent month-on-month while SpiceJet’s was unchanged at 15.5 per cent.
20/09/19 Kumar Vikram/New Indian Express

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India to consider taking Pakistan to ICAO for denying Modi permission to use its airspace

New Delhi: India will certainly consider taking Pakistan to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) if it has violated any regulation of the global body by denying Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plane to use Pakistani airspace for his visit to the United States, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said on Thursday.

”It’s an unfortunate situation where a country denies overflight to the head of state/head of government of another country. But it’s true when there’s a normal country. Hope Pakistan will realise the folly of its actions,” he told reporters here.

Gokhale said: ”As far as going to any international organisation is concerned, we’ll take a look at that. So far there’s no intention to do so.”
Pakistan on Wednesday turned down India’s request for allowing the PM’s special aircraft to use the country’s airspace, citing the situation in Jammu and Kashmir and India’s attitude as the reasons.
19/09/19 Statesman

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IAF receives its first ‘acceptance’ Rafale combat aircraft from France

New Delhi: After a long wait, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has finally received its first ‘acceptance’ Rafale combat aircraft from France.
According to news agency ANI, the IAF got its first ‘acceptance’ Rafale combat aircraft from French firm Dassault Aviation on Thursday.
Deputy Air Force Chief Air Marshal VR Chaudhary also flew in the aircraft for around one hour.
India had signed an inter-governmental agreement with France in September 2016 for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore.
The major defence deal was at the centre of massive political controversy with the Congress and the other Opposition parties alleging corruption by the Narendra Modi government in the deal.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is set to receive the first of 36 Rafale fighter jets in Paris on October 8 - the foundation day of the Indian Air Force, according to government sources.
20/09/19 Ritesh K Srivastava/Zee News

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Meet new Air Chief RKS Bhadauria: Among first IAF pilots to fly Rafale jet

New Delhi: Air Marshal Rakesh Kumar Bhadauria, who has been named as the next chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF), was among the first IAF pilots to fly the Rafale fighter jets that are being procured from French defence manufacturing giant Dassault Aviation.

Speaking to India Today TV after flying the Rafale earlier this year, Air Marshal Bhadauria had said his experience of flying the jet was "excellent".

"The exercise was very important. It had a lot of importance for us because Rafale is being inducted into the IAF. We wanted to know everything about it," he had said.

Air Marshal Bhadauria said, "The exercise gave us the opportunity to explore how best we can use Rafale for our requirements."

On Thursday, in a tweet, the defence ministry said the government has decided to appoint Air Marshal RKS Bhadauria, who is presently the Vice-Chief of Air Staff as the next Chief of the Air Staff.

Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa, the 25th Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force, is due to retire on September 30. He took over as the Chief of the Air Staff on January 1, 2017.
19/09/19 India Today

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Domestic carriers carry 3.87% more passengers in August

New Delhi: Indian domestic carriers flew 3.87 per cent more passengers at 1.17 crore in August this year as compared to the 1.13 crore flown during the same period previously.

IndiGo carried 55.41 lakh of the 1.17 crore passengers flown by the domestic industry followed by SpiceJet at 18.34 lakh and Air India (15.15 lakh). Go Air carried 13.91 lakh while Air Asia flew 7.63 lakh and Vistara (6.84 lakh)

SpiceJet, reported the highest Passenger Load Factor (PLF) of 92.4 per cent among the domestic airlines in August followed by AirAsia (87.8 per cent), GoAir (87.5 per cent), IndiGo (84.3 per cent) and Vistara (81.8 per cent). Passenger load factor shows how many of the total seats on offer by each airline are getting filled.

GoAir reported the best on-time performance (OTP) at 85.1 per cent followed by AirAsia (82.7 per cent), IndiGo (80.3per cent), Vistara (78.4 per cent), SpiceJet (70.8 per cent) and Air India (59.8 per cent) at the four metro airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
19/09/19 Business Line

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IndiGo dominates Indian skies with nearly half the market share in August, but it is not the most punctual, shows DGCA data

IndiGo has continued its dominance of the Indian airspace, cornering 47 percent of the market share in the country, however, it was only the third most punctual operator in the country, lagging behind GoAir and AirAsia, data from the aviation regulator has revealed.

InterGlobe Aviation’s IndiGo has built a massive lead over its rivals when it comes to market share. Spice Jet came a distant second with 15.5 percent followed by the national carrier Air India (12.8 percent), according to the latest data published by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. Private carrier Go Air (11.8 percent) and Malaysian low-cost carrier AirAsia (6.5 percent) rounded up the top five operators in the country.

IndiGo’s share in July was 47.8 percent, while it reached a peak 49.9 percent in April this year.

The Indian carriers have reaped the benefits of Jet Airways going under as it grapples with crushing debt and its inability to find a new buyer. The Naresh Goyal-led private carrier last operated a flight in April.

In terms of punctuality, Go Air trumped all other carriers, operating 85.1 percent of its August flights on time. AirAsia operated 82.7 percent of its flights on time while IndiGo managed a rate of around four out of five flights (80.3 percent) on schedule. Air India flew just about six of its ten flights on time (59.8 percent).

The on-time performance (OTP) data took into account flights from Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
19/09/19 CNBC TV18

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Airfares rise only a tad this festive season

Mumbai: Airfares for the upcoming festival season starting October have inched up from their lows in September and are also higher than the same time last year, said airline and travel company executives. But a creeping slowdown in demand for travel will keep the fares reined in compared with the high levels of April-June when the grounding of Jet Airways led to a capacity shortage that set ticket prices soaring, they said.
“Year on year, the current bookings for this year’s travel during the festive season (Diwali + Dusshera) is about 6% higher than last year,” said Balu Ramachandran, head of air travel business at travel portal Cleartrip.
A spokesperson at Makemytrip said the portal’s data shows a 5% increase in travel bookings as well as fares for the Diwali season.
But airline executives sounded less optimistic. “I am seeing a direct correlation between fares and loads/bookings,” said a senior airline executive.
“For those who have raised fares, bookings have dropped. For those that have kept fares low, bookings may be higher but still not higher in revenue terms. I see an overall weakening of revenue environment compared with the April-June period,” he said.
19/09/19 Anirban Chowdhury/Economic Times

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DGCA suspends two Pawan Hans pilots for three months

Mumbai: Aviation regulator DGCA suspended the flying licence of two pilots of Pawan Hans for three months for an incident at the Guwahati airport on July 24. The suspension of Bhanu Johri and Nikhilesh Bharat Gupta is effective from the date of the incident, the regulator said in an order issued Wednesday.

"On July 24, Pawan Hans' Dauphin helicopter was involved in an incident at Guwahati while operating a training flight. The helicopter was under the command of Bhanu Johri, who was examiner with Nikhilesh Bharat Gupta as the first officer, who was undergoing check," said the DGCA.
During landing on the runway, "the crew did not carry out the mandatory landing checklist and the helicopter's landing gear was not extended. Due to this, the belly of the helicopter touched the runway surface and resulted in damages to the helicopter.

The two pilots have failed to monitor and ensure the landing gear was lowered for landing, thereby compromising the safety of the aircraft and its occupants, the DGCA said.
18/09/19 EtNowNews.com

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Rajnath Singh becomes first defence minister to fly indigenously-built Tejas fighter jet

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh flew on board India’s indigenously-built Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas in Bengaluru, Karnataka on September 19.
Singh is now the first defence minister to fly on board the LCA.
After the 30-minute sortie, Singh said that it was “very smooth and comfortable.”
“I was enjoying. I want to congratulate HAL, DRDO and several concerned agencies. We have reached a level where we can export fighter planes across the world,” he added.
Air Vice Marshal N Tiwari, who flew along with Singh said that the defence minister “was very happy with flying quality of the aircraft” and that they “went close to Mach 1 -- the speed of sound”.
Before the flight, he was briefed about Tejas’ functioning at the airport.
A Defence Ministry official on September 18 had said the minister is "taking a sortie" in order to boost the morale of officers who have been involved in the development of "indigenously-made Tejas".
"It will also boost the morale of IAF pilots who are flying these aircraft. The minister will be briefed by IAF officers before taking a sortie on Thursday," he added.
19/09/19 Moneycontrol News

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Will oil price rise affect air fares?

Crude prices have jumped after drone attacks on two oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, which accounts for around 10 per cent of the global oil production. The rise in oil prices will increase costs for airlines, but it is too early to assess the impact of sudden increase in prices on airfares, according to industry stakeholders.
Read what experts say >>

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Bad news for flyers: Airfares may jump up to 20% in festival season

Airfares could rise by 15-20% during the upcoming festival season with global crude oil prices jumping 12% due to drone strikes on world’s largest oil producer Saudi Aramco, according to experts and travel industry executives.

Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) comprises nearly 40% of total costs of airline operations. Around 70% of the total domestic ticket bookings take place in 0-28 days’ travel window. The festival season starts with Navratras from September 29 and run up to Diwali on October 27.
Domestic ATF prices stood at Rs 63,295 per kilolitre in Delhi. The current prices are down around 8% year-on-year but things could change quickly. Experts believe that the impact of the Aramco incident is expected to continue for next three months. “The Aramco refinery attack clubbed with the weak rupee on the dollar should raise jet fuel prices by 15-18% per litre, depending on the states. We expect similar increase in base airfare in the coming days. Clearly, this doesn’t appear positive for the sector given that festival season is just round the corner; and the burden will be on end traveller,” said Mark Martin of Martin Consulting.
Global oil supplies were disrupted after Aramco’s oil facilities were targeted by drones attack. According to Bloomberg, Brent crude jumped $12 per barrel on Monday to around $72 per barrel.
Travel industry executives pointed out that airlines would be forced to pass on some of the increased costs on to the passengers depending on how long the latest crude crisis continue.
17/09/19 Arun Nayal/Financial Express

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Modi govt again considering merging rail, roads, aviation, shipping into transport ministry

New Delhi: The Modi government, in its second tenure, is once again considering having a unified transport ministry through combining the road, railways, civil aviation and shipping ministries, officials familiar with the matter told ThePrint.
A top panel of secretaries, constituted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to recommend transformative ideas for the infrastructure sector, discussed the unified transport ministry idea with the cabinet secretary last month.
“We have recommended that the way forward is a unified transport ministry to provide integrated multi-modal solutions,” one senior official who did not want to be named said.
The secretarial panel is likely to make a presentation before the Prime Minister soon. “A final call on whether to go ahead with the recommendation will be taken only after the meeting with the PM,” the official added.
17/09/19 Maushumi Das Gupta/Print

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IAF LCA Tejas to have a special pilot; Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to fly in the fighter in Bengaluru

In a major boost to India's indigenous defence sector, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will be flying in the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas in Bengaluru on September 19, 2019. Singh will take to the skies in a twin-seater version of the Tejas combat aircraft, which arm the Indian Air Force No. 45 Squadron ‘Flying Daggers' based at Tamil Nadu's Sulur Air Force Station.
Tejas, designed and developed by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Aeronautical Development Agency, is India's home-grown single-engine multirole light fighter to replace the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 Bison aircraft. Tejas, the soon-to-be-inducted French Rafale and Sukhoi Su-30 MKIs will be the backbone of IAF for the next several years. The IAF had in December 2017 issued a request for proposal (RFP) to HAL for the 83 Tejas jets at an estimated cost of almost Rs 50,000 crore. Out of the 83 Tejas aircraft, 10 are likely to the twin-seater version to be used for training the pilots.
The Final Operational Clearance (FOC) standard certification, which means the aircraft is combat-ready, was issued by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to Tejas on February 21, 2019, during the Aero India show in Bengaluru. Tejas has already been equipped with mid-air refuelling, active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, electronic warfare suites, several different types of bombs, missiles and weapons.
T Suvarna Raju, the HAL Chairman and Managing Director, has already pointed out that Tejas is a four-and-half generation fighter and can be modified to make it a much more lethal jet.
17/09/19 Zee News

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NAL In Talks With Govt About Its New Plan Of 70-seater Aircraft

Mumbai: The CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories, that is developing a 19-seater indigenous light transport aircraft 'Saras Mk2' has plans for a 70-seater aircraft, Union Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Monday. "Today itself they have started talking to me to get the permissions from and meetings with civil aviation ministry for their future plan of the 70-seater. That is also very heartening to know," Harsh Vardhan said.

"Seventy-seater has always been in the long-term vision and since they have mentioned about this today we will have to bring the civil aviation ministry on board. We have to take the approval of the Prime Minister's office. Also, we will have to take scientists also on board, so as a science and technology minister I will facilitate them to move in the right direction," he said.

The Minister was speaking to reporters after laying the foundation for NAL's system check facility, aircraft integration facility, and the inauguration of smart aerospace composite manufacturing facility here. NAL Director Jitendra J Jadhav said since NAL has a fair amount of experience, it would start the design of 70-seater.

He said, "First, we will have to get in-principle approval from Ministry of Science and Technology, and Civil Aviation, also from Ministry of Finance, then we can finish design phase one-and-a-half year from that, which will be the preliminary design phase. Then we will submit it to the government, once the government sanctions, we will develop."

CSIR-NAL is currently engaged in the design, development and certification of Saras Mk2, a twin-engine turboprop 19-seater transport aircraft for connecting small cities. Harsh Vardhan said everything was ready for the 19- seater and the government has given all its support in terms of clearance and fund requirement to NAL.
16/09/19 PTI/Republic World

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Aviation ministry seeks tax waiver on passenger service fee

New Delhi: The civil aviation ministry has asked the finance ministry to waive income tax on the money earned though the passenger services fee (PSF), which is spent on security at all airports.
If implemented, the move will dent the government’s direct tax collection by a tad.
“The income tax department charges tax (in the highest slab) on the fee that was earlier collected by airports. We have made a request to the finance ministry to exempt it from tax, as it is collected by us but managed by a trust,” said an aviation ministry official, refusing to be identified.
The aviation ministry has also requested the finance ministry to bring jet fuel under GST. It is expected to ease the burden on the aviation turbine fuel, which is now taxed up to 36% across states. Jet fuel has up to 50% share in the cost of operations for airlines.
The government has cleared a long-pending issue of increasing the PSF from July 1 to ensure that the collection is enough to meet the cost of securing the airports. PSF has also been linked to inflation, which means it would increase every three years based on the inflation rate. It will take care of any increase in costs.
17/09/19 Mihir Mishra/Economic Times

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Airlines may keep Jet slots, foreign rights till March-end

New Delhi: The Centre is likely to allow domestic carriers to keep Jet Airways’s slots at domestic airports and its foreign traffic rights until the end of March, or during the winter schedule, a senior official of the Civil Aviation Ministry said.

“The airlines said that a temporary allocation of Jet Airways’s slots and traffic rights for three months put them at a disadvantage as they are left with a shorter booking period as compared to foreign carriers and requested that these to be given to them until the end of the winter schedule. We will consider their request,” P.S. Kharola, Secretary, Civil Aviation Ministry, told The Hindu. The airlines raised the issue at a meeting with the Ministry last week.

Airlines plan their flight schedules twice a year — summer and winter schedules. The winter schedule will be in force from the last Sunday of October to the last Saturday of March. The government’s decision will help the airlines plan their flights for the winter season before they file their schedule with the Director General of Civil Aviation.
In April, the Ministry allotted 440 of the 750 airport slots held by Jet Airways to various carriers for three months after the Mumbai-headquartered airline stopped flying due to cash constraints. This was extended in August until the end of December.
16/09/19 Jagriti Chandra/The Hindu

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Safe skies: Air traffic controllers, aircraft engineers to undergo breath test by year-end

New Delhi: By the end of this year, airports across India will begin conducting breath analyser (BA) tests on aviation personnel like air traffic controllers (ATCOs), people driving vehicles in the operational areas, firefighters and aircraft maintenance engineers.

So far only pilots and cabin crew have to clear BA tests to ensure they are perfectly sober before being allowed to operate flights. But Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) chief Arun Kumar has now expanded the scope of this test to all aviation personnel providing critical services as it is essential they are not tipsy when on the job.

The tests will kick off by October 30 at ten of India’s busiest airports that include the six metros, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Lucknow and Guwahati. By November-end, 33 more airports including Jaipur, Vadodara, Srinagar, Mangalore and Juhu (Mumbai) will start conducting these tests. By the year-end all licensed airports will need to do so.

The categories of aviation employees who will now have to clear the tipsy test include aircraft maintenance engineers; drivers of fuelling and catering vehicles; aerobridge operators; rescue and fire fighting personnel (ARFF); ATCOs and flight dispatchers.

“At least 10% individuals involved in the above mentioned activities, employed in their respective organisations (category wise) shall be randomly subjected to BA examination on a daily basis… The (airport operator) management shall be responsible for the conduct of BA test on the personnel of the ground handling agency and aerodrome operational personnel, while airlines, air navigation service provider, maintenance organisations for their employees,” a statement issued by DGCA said.
16/09/19 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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DGCA to counsel airline crew as mid-flight TikTok videos flood the web

New Delhi: The surge of TikTok videos filmed by airline crew, often mid-flight and at times in the cockpit, has caught the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s attention and the regulator is not pleased.
As yet another TikTok video of a crew member “modelling” down the aisle of an aircraft went viral Monday, a senior DGCA official told ThePrint that the trend was “not desirable at all”.
“We have checked those videos,” the official added. “This not desirable at all and we will counsel them all on this.”
TikTok is a social media app where users can film short videos that involve lip-sync to dialogues and lyrics, or other antics. It enjoys viral popularity, and has over 500 million downloads on the Google Play Store alone.
Airline crew seem to have caught on to the trend as well, filming videos displaying all manner of antics, be it dancing to Bollywood numbers, or giving followers a view from the cockpit.
Under hashtags such as “#Pilotslife”, “#crewlife”, and “#flightattendant”, there are hundreds of videos on TikTok showing airline crew with babies on board, chatting with fellow crew members, and even shutting the exit door of the aircraft.
Among Indian airlines, the staff of SpiceJet — as in the ramp walk video — and IndiGo are most commonly seen in the videos.
The DGCA is frowning upon these videos because airline crew are not allowed to take photographs during any phase of flight. A 2011 DGCA circular on managing “Disruptions and Distractions” said photography during flight was a source of distraction that may lead to error and reduce safety.
16/09/19 Ifrah Mufti/Print

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IAF's Golden Arrows squadron to be revived for Rafale

The Indian Air Force on Tuesday is expected to resurrect its ‘Golden Arrows‘ 17 Squadron which will be the first unit to fly the multi-role Rafale fighter jets.

IAF chief B S Dhanoa will resurrect the 17 squadron at an event on Tuesday at the Ambala Air Force Station as it prepares to receive the Rafale jets, official sources said.

The ‘Golden Arrows‘ 17 Squadron was commanded by Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa during the Kargil war in 1999.

The squadron, which operated from Bhatinda air base, was disbanded in 2016 after the IAF started gradual phasing out of Russian-origin Mig 21 jets.

The squadron was formed in 1951, and initially it flew de Havilland Vampire F Mk 52 fighters.

India is expected to receive the first Rafale jet by end of this month.
The IAF has already completed preparations, including readying required infrastructure and training of pilots, to welcome the fighter aircraft.
The sources said the first squadron of the aircraft will be deployed at the Ambala Air Force Station, considered one of the most strategically located bases of the IAF.
16/09/19 Spring Hill Contributor/Rawlins Review

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