The government has taken steps to prevent poaching of pilots of Air India by its competitors with the national carrier facing a shortage of 180 trained pilots due to resignation and natural attrition, Rajya Sabha was informed today.

"There is a shortage of approximately 180 trained pilots due to resignations/attrition in the recent past and ensuing fleet augmentation," Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma said in reply to a questioning Rajya Sabha.

The pilot and co-pilot of an Air India plane involved in last night’s freak accident at the Mumbai airport where a technician died after getting sucked into the engine have been grounded even as the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau launched a probe.

Air India Chairman and Managing Director Ashwani Lohani, who rushed to Mumbai this morning for an on-the-spot inquiry, said, “initially it seems that there was some communication gap.” He, however, refused to go into the details of what could have possibly caused the mishap described as a “serious accident.”

In a freak accident, an aircraft technician died after being sucked into the engine of an Air India aircraft during push back at the Mumbai airport this evening.

The mishap occurred when the co-pilot of Mumbai-Hyderabad flight 619 mistook a signal for starting the engine and the victim, Ravi Subramanian, who was standing close, got sucked into it at bay 28 of the Chhatrapati Shivaji domestic airport around 8:40 pm.

AHMEDABAD: For the first time since merger of Indian Airlines into Air India, the national carrier is likely to report an operating profit of about Rs six crores in the current fiscal, owing to a combination of factors including lower fuel costs and Dreamliner operations, among others.

The Dreamliners (Boeing 787-800) are helping the company to turnaround it's business in a big way, said Anil Mehta, the Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to the AI Chairman and Managing Director.

IN an attempt to revive its fortune, cash-strapped Air India is focusing on increasing operating efficiency and simultaneously reducing working capital- and aircraft-related debt, according to the turnaround plan tabled in 2012. The national carrier is also trying to monetise its assets in India and abroad to increase revenues.

The total debt of Air India in FY15 stood at around Rs 50,000 crore, of which Rs 19,000 crore is related to aircraft. A senior official of the airline told FE that the airline has managed to repay 50% of the total airline-related debt.

Air India's first non-stop flight from New Delhi to San Francisco has landed here amid rousing welcome, becoming the first Indian airline to provide a direct air connection to the West Coast in the US.

The Air India flight AI 173, a B777-200LR aircraft, with 230 passengers on board landed here at 5:40 am on Wednesday with airport traffic control tower lit in Indian tricolor to welcome the flight to the city. The passengers applauded when the aircraft touched the ground.

NEW DELHI: In an unprecedented move to protect its pilots from being poached by other airlines, Air India is planning to make its new entrants sign a bond of up to Rs 1 crore.

Pilots joining the airline will have to pay this amount if they quit before a certain period during which AI has not recovered the cost of training incurred on them.

Air India on Friday said it will start a new tri-weekly Hyderabad-San Francisco flight via New Delhi from next week.

The flight will travel non-stop from New Delhi to San Francisco and passengers headed to the US city will undergo all customs and immigration formalities at Hyderabad airport itself for their onward journey, the national carrier said in a statement.

WASHINGTON: US' San Francisco International Airport has announced a trivia contest on social media to mark the beginning of the first-ever non-stop flight from New Delhi to the popular tech city by Air India from December 2.

The contest, titled #NonstopAirIndia, invites participants to answer five trivia questions about Air India and their new service at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

Air India has mopped up Rs 7,000 crore by selling nine of its 21 Dreamliner planes to a Singaporean lessor, which it has taken back on lease from the company under an SLB arrangement.

A major chunk of these funds will go into repayment of the bridge loan availed earlier for purchasing these Boeing 787-800s, airline sources said.

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