“Rome was not built in a day,” quips Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani on the carrier’s struggles to emerge as a good service amidst its huge debt troubles. But Lohani does not think that the airline’s issues are insurmountable. In fact, he is optimistic that progress is being made in the right direction to increase the operating profit. “We are working to improve our performance. We have a lot of legacy issues, we have no magic wand to turn around things,” he says.

For those who insist that traveling is all about the journey, we say this: It really depends on which carrier you’re flying.

Aside from variations in cabins and service quality, there’s the major concern of how likely you are to get delayed. Fly on the wrong airline and your odds of a delay are as high as 55 per cent; choose the right one and that number shrinks way down to just 11 per cent. That’s enough to make or break a vacation's spell, no matter where you’re sitting on the plane. But how do you know which airlines to steer clear of, and which ones to prioritise?

For those who insist that traveling is all about the journey, we say this: It really depends on which carrier you’re flying.

Aside from variations in cabins and service quality, there’s the major concern of how likely you are to get delayed. Fly on the wrong airline and your odds of a delay are as high as 55%; choose the right one and that number shrinks way down to just 11%. That’s enough to make or break a vacation's spell, no matter where you're sitting on the plane.

A day after announcing its ticket prices at par with AC II of Rajdhani trains, National carrier Air India today came out with another lucrative offer for its passengers allowing enhanced free check-in baggage on its jumbo 747 flights operating on the trunk Delhi-Mumbai route.

Besides, the carrier also announced heavily discounted fares, starting at Rs 15,000 for travel in first class of its Queen of the Skies (Boeing 747) flights to the two cities till January 15, a release said.

Air India is offering tickets at the price of Rajdhani! Yes, the state-run airline has come up with yet another offer that compares fares with that of Rajdhani AC-2nd class travel. This time the advantage is that you can book your tickets 20 days in advance, as opposed to the 4-hour window announced by Air India last time. The ‘Republic Day’ special offer of Air India starts from January 6 and will go on for a three-month period. You can now travel from various cities (see list below) at fares ranging from Rs 1080 to Rs 4730.

The civil aviation ministry is satisfied with the performance of Air India with respect to its 2012 turnaround plan for which the government pumped in R30,000 crore into the loss-making airline, and expects it to post an operating profit this financial year also, secretary RN Choubey told FE.

He said since the carrier’s plan is on track, the ministry expects it to post a net profit in FY19 ahead of the target of 2020-21 stipulated in the turnaround plan. Choubey’s assertion that the state-owned carrier will post an operating profit in FY17 is significant since the airline posted an operating loss during the first two quarters of the current fiscal.

State-owned airline Air India will get only Rs 80 crore as additional budget support in the current financial year from the government – way below its demand of Rs 2,200 crore.

This is despite the fact Air India’s chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani had written to the government that lack of funds might derail the turnaround process of the airline. “The finance ministry accepted the civil aviation ministry’s argument that additional fund was necessary for the airline but expressed its inability to accept the full demand,” said a senior civil aviation ministry official.

New Delhi: Flag carrier Air India Ltd will deploy its double-decker four-engine jumbo jet Boeing 747 on domestic flights between Delhi-Mumbai to beat airport congestion.

The airline mostly flies its twin-engine narrow body Airbus A320 plane on this route currently, typically offering 140 seats inclusive of 20 business class seats.

A total of 21,678 passengers availed the last minute ticket sale scheme, which was launched by the national carrier Air India in early July this year under which it offered fares equivalent to AC second class of Rajdhani Express, Parliament was informed.

The Government-run airline had on July 9 launched the offer for a limited period, saying that the move was aimed at not only making last-minute bookings more affordable but also to fill up vacant seats.

Air India will get less than half of the equity support it wanted from the government this fiscal. Against the demand of Rs 3,900 crore, the state-owned airline will get only Rs 1,713 crore in FY17, official sources told FE. The capital infusion is part of the Rs 30,000-crore bailout package for Air India in the form of equity support by the government. So far, Rs 23,933 crore has been released to the company in several tranches.

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