Saudi Arabia opened its airspace for the first time to a commercial flight to Israel with the inauguration on Thursday of an Air India route between New Delhi and Tel Aviv.

Air India 139 landed at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport after a flight of over 7-1/2 hours, marking a diplomatic shift for Riyadh that Israel says was fuelled by shared concern over Iranian influence in the region.

Amidst the privatisation talks, it has been reported that the national carrier Air India might gove promotion to its 100 pilots with a pay hike of Rs 12 lakh per head.

"The 100 deputy general manager rank pilots are narrow-body and widebody pilots. These pilots are likely to be promoted to executive despite the fact that the airline is being privatised," a source told the Economic Times.

The government is likely to relax the eligibility criteria for Air India disinvestment by allowing airlines with negative net worth to bid. However, non-airline companies may be told to satisfy minimum net worth conditions to prove their financial strength.

The evaluation committee of Air India, after discussions with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, had suggested that all bidders be mandated to fulfil a minimum net worth criterion, a source said.

NEW DELHI: Air India’s Twitter account @airindiain was hacked on Thursday with a Turkish group claiming responsibility for the act.

The account was restored by noon. “Your account has been hacked by the Turkish cyber army Ayyildiz Tim. Your DM correspondence and important data have been captured," read another tweet on the compromised account.

Air India’s official Twitter account was hacked early in the morning on Thursday for many hours before being restored, the airline has said.

Messages in Turkish language were posted on the official Twitter handle @airindiain, said an Air India spokesperson

State-owned telecommunications services providers Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited apart from state carrier Air India registered a net loss of more than Rs 116.86 billion in 2016-17, effectively becoming the top 3 loss-making ventures of the government.

The Public Enterprises Survey 2016-17, tabled in parliament on Tuesday by the Department of Public Enterprises, showed that the number of loss-making central enterprises have continued to rise for the third straight year, growing to 82 in the last financial year.

A consortium of Jet Airways, Air France-KLM and Delta Airlines understood to have expressed interest in the disinvestment of national carrier Air India, according to sources. Moving ahead with the strategic disinvestment of loss-making Air India, the government is expected to soon invite Expression of Interest (EoI) from the bidders. Against this backdrop, sources said a consortium of three full services, including Jet Airways, are keen to put in their bid for the national carrier.

Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha on Friday said the government was well on track to complete the stake sale process in Air India by the end of this calendar year as was decided earlier.

"Our timelines are very clear and our goal is to award it (Air India) by the end of June and to have the whole transaction closed and done and transfer of airline to the private sector by the end of this calendar year.

Committed to accelerate Air India’s disinvestment program soon, government is likely to invite the initial bids in a couple of weeks, PTI reported citing Civil Aviation Secretary RN Choubey. The process of Air India’s disinvestment is likely to invite Expressions of Interest (EoIs) from interested parties in the coming few weeks, PTI reported. Currently, the ministry is also engaged in finding buyers for its subsidiaries and Pawan Hans, the report said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Saudi Arabia had granted Air India permission to fly over its territory on its new routes to and from Tel Aviv.

There was no immediate confirmation from either Saudi officials or Air India. Mr. Netanyahu made the announcement during a briefing in Washington to Israeli reporters after he had met U.S. President Donald Trump.

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