Air India is all set to take delivery of its first more fuel-efficient A320 neo aircraft in January next year.

As it works on ways to turn around its fortunes, the airline is looking to ramp up the fleet with more fuel-efficient A320 neo (new engine option) planes.

The Narendra Modi-led central government has on several occasions chest-thumped about having changed the fortunes of Air India and Air India Express. Only recently it announced that Air India had made a profit after long. However, it turns out, some part of this profit would have been made by charging senior citizens booking tickets online as much as three times the normal adult airfare across sectors in India.

Thousands of people above the age of 60 years – pensioners, retired people, armed forces personnel and others – use Air India every month. The government-run airline seems to have charged these people at much higher rates than usual, even as they are entitled to concessionary airfare.

State-owned Air India, which reported an operating profit of Rs 105 crore during FY16, in what was seen as early signs of a turnaround, also managed to increase its revenue per regular employee by over 12% to Rs 1.09 crore in the year. This was achieved by reducing the number of regular employees to 19,401, down 8% compared with FY15.

Air India, which received a bailout package of Rs 30,000 crore by the government in 2012, had frozen hiring of regular employees in 2012 and has since hired pilots and cabin crew on contract. This improved the airline-to-employee ratio to 1:120 (excluding subsidiaries) compared with 1:139 in the earlier fiscal.

Flag carrier Air India is mulling leasing ten Dornier aircraft from Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd to boost its regional operations as the government looks to make flying more affordable under the ambitious UDAN scheme.

State-owned HAL is already making the Dornier 228 planes under licence from Swiss technology company RUAG for the defence forces and European markets.

An Air India plane, carrying 108 passengers and crew members onboard, on Sunday made an emergency landing at the Indira Gandhi International airport in the national capital after its tyre burst while taking off from Udaipur.

The aircraft (Airbus 319 operating as flight no AI-472) took off around 7:20 PM from Udaipur's Maharana Pratap international Airport and just before it took to the skies, a loud bang was heard, officials said.

An Air India plane carrying 128 passengers and crew members from Ahmedabad suffered a tyre burst while landing at the city airport this morning.

All passengers are safe and another aircraft has been arranged to ferry passengers to their onward journey, an Air India spokesperson in New Delhi said.

Air India's plans to grow its maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) business faces a big risk as it faces a severe shortage of aircraft engineers.

Air India hived off its engineering department into a separate unit last January to tap business from other airlines. Primarily, it still caters to Air India's aircraft maintenance but aims to double its third party business to Rs 130 crore in FY 17.

For the first time in a decade, Air India has reported an operating profit of Rs 105 crore in the last fiscal aided by lower fuel costs and rise in passenger numbers. The state-owned airline, which is working on ways to improve its financials, had an operating loss of Rs 2,636 crore in 2014-15.

During its meeting on Friday, the Air India board approved the financial numbers for 2015-16 and the carrier has reported an operating profit of Rs 105 crore, sources said.

State-owned carrier Air India has reduced its aircraft-related loans by `6,000 crore, which now stand at `14,000 crore against `20,000 crore at the end of FY16. Airline officials told FE that the airline paid back `6,000 crore of bridge loans recently from the proceeds of sale and lease-back of its nine Dreamliner aircraft, which was conducted at the end of August.

Two years after government-owned Air India (AI) walked out of the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA), citing differences in opinion, it has approached the lobby group to return, said three sources.

They say chairman Ashwini Lohani feels it will give more muscle to AI's demands when it approaches the government as part of a group. FIA is now a lobby group of the country’s private airlines, which presses for change in public policy and regulations.

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