National carrier Air India has announced that it will be providing unbeatable metros fare to domestic passengers willing to return the same day from Monday.

In aviation industry there is huge fare war and Air India wants to beat all airlines and attract passengers through lowest fares.

The non-availability of slots at city's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) may prompt Air India to use Pune as its base to ramp up the regional connectivity in Maharashtra, linking regions like Nanded, Amravati, Nashik and Shirdi.

As part of its plan to develop civil aviation infrastructure in the state, the government has been holding meetings with the scheduled and unscheduled airlines, inviting them to enhance regional connectivity.

MUMBAI: Air India will launch a new Ahmedabad-Newark via London tri-weekly flight from August 15, an official said here on Thursday.

The service AI-171 will be operated with a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport at 5.30 a.m. all Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and reach London at 10.15 a.m.

Air India has approached the government asking it to guarantee non-convertible debentures (NCD) worth `10,500 crore that it wants to issue against long-terms debt on its books. Converting loans into NCDs would bring down the interest rate by about 2%, senior executives at the airline explained. The country’s national carrier also plans to use the proceeds from a sale and lease back of wide-bodied aircraft to retire Rs ,500 crore or about a fifth of its short-term debt.

Aiming to attract more fliers and achieve higher seat occupancy in its flights on trunk routes, Air India has decided to lower its last minute ticket fares to the level of 2-tier AC of Rajdhani trains.

As part of the pricing strategy, Air India will drop fares on four key routes--Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Chennai, Delhi-Kolkata and Delhi-Bengaluru--four hours before the departure of flights to these destinations.

With an aim to connect more global destinations, leading state-run airline Air India will launch Ahmedabad-London-Newark flight from August 15 and Delhi-Madrid in December, and also plans to expand its fleet size in next four years, a top official said today.

“We will be launching the Ahmedabad-London-Newark flight from August 15 and Delhi-Madrid from December as part of our growth plan,” Air India Chairman and Managing Director, Ashwini Lohani, told reporters here.

NEW DELHI: The Maharaja does not want its crew to get naughty on duty. Air India's crew management system (CMS), which pairs pilots and cabin crew for flights and prepares rosters, routinely gets requests from crew to be paired with specific members of their choice.

Keen to avoid a scandal since some married crew members also make requests, the airline has now banned CMS from accepting such requests and warned of action against crew members who do so.

New Delhi: Air India Ltd’s chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani has hit out at the previous government, saying it left the state-owned airline in a mess led by a botched merger and billions of dollars in aircraft debt.

Air India, the international arm, and Indian Airlines which flew mostly domestic routes were merged by the United Progressive Alliance government in 2007 under a single banner, Air India Ltd.

Air India made Rs 1 crore profit a day under Y C Deveshwar's chairpersonship in fiscal 1993. Deveshwar, who is stepping down as executive chairperson of ITC from next February, held the post of Air India chairperson during 1991-94. He was appointed by then civil aviation minister Madhavrao Scindia and succeeded Subhash Gupte who held officiating charge at that time.

Deveshwar's tenure in Air India was marked by improved profits and good management practices. He framed policies on succession planning and tried to bring focus on increasing corporate sales, say retired airline executives.

Air India’s “books are so bad” that nobody will buy it, even if the government wanted to sell off the national carrier, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said on Thursday.

Ruling out disinvestment in the carrier that has a debt of Rs 50,000 crore, Raju at the same time said the taxpayers’ money could not be committed “for eternity”.

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