Air India is planning to tweak its daily service to Australia, to cut losses.

In August 2013, it had launched a daily service connecting Delhi with Sydney and Melbourne in a single trip. Now, the airline would operate separate flights to Sydney and Melbourne, with reduced frequency.

Air India plans to close its 64 city booking offices in the country by October 1. Saddled with rising losses, the government-owned airline is reviewing the viability of its offices in 46 foreign cities.

“The city office in Madurai has been closed. There is no need to maintain physical infrastructure for ticketing, cancellation and refund when most airlines are aggressively using the web. It has been decided to close all city booking offices by October 1,” said an Air India executive.

NEW DELHI: Air India has terminated the services of almost 30 pilots who were working on contract, including all expats hired for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, in the past six months. With each contract pilot getting almost Rs 10 lakh per month, cash-strapped AI hopes to save about Rs 4 crore from the move.

"We have terminated contract of 11 pilots of Boeing 777, two simulator instructors who used to get Rs 4,500 per hour, two pilots of Boeing 747 and about 15 expats hired for the Dreamliner," said a senior official.

The Supreme Court today decided to hear the cross-appeals filed by Air India Management and workers union against the order of the Bombay High Court which dealt with various contentious issues arising out of the Justice Dharmadhikari report on the merger of the erstwhile Indian Airlines and Air India.

A bench headed by Chief Justice R M Lodha sought their responses within six weeks and posted the matter for hearing after 10 weeks.

Indian carriers, Air India and Jet Airways, will avoid the airspace of war-torn eastern Ukraine following a directive issued to them by the DGCA in the wake of reported shooting down of a Malaysian airliner in which all 295 people on board were killed today.

The aviation regulator, Director General of Civil Aviation issued instructions to Air India and Jet Airways, the only two Indian carriers that fly to Europe and North America, to avoid Ukrainian airspace while flying to and from destinations in both the continents, official sources said here.

In a move that will help cut operating expenses, Air India has invited bids to sell three Boeing 777-200LR planes. Last October, the national carrier sold five planes of the same type to Etihad Airways for about $350 million. Etihad operates the planes on the Abu Dhabi-Los Angeles route.

State-owned Air India, which is focusing on its turnaround plan, has stopped flying on nine unprofitable routes in the last two years to cut down on its losses.

According to information submitted in Parliament recently, the airline was not able to meet even variable costs like fuel on such routes and losses on them since 2011 had accumulated to Rs 455 crore.

NEW DELHI: The Modi government is likely to extend the term of Rohit Nandan as Air India's chairman and managing director (CMD). The aviation ministry has asked the UP government to allow Nandan, a UP cadre IAS officer, to stay in the central deputation job as he has already spent five years out of the state. Usually states give an extension of two more years, commonly known as "five plus two" practice in bureaucratic parlance.

An Air India flight with 313 passengers onboard was forced to return to Newark Liberty International Airport on Sunday after an engine on the Boeing 777 appeared to overheat and catch fire, according to airport officials.

The officials previously said a bird strike may have caused the fire but later ruled that out after conducting an investigation, said Erica Dumas, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

An Indigo flight from Bagdogra came close to a descending Air India plane over Bagdogra in West Bengal this afternoon, raising the spectre of a collision and giving scare to about 250 passengers on board the two aircraft.

The Air Traffic Control (ATC) had given clearance to both the aircraft, according to Indigo airline spokesperson.

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