Hyderabad: Facing the heat of the financial crisis that has hit the aviation sector, state-owned Air India today said it is considering a plan to give 3-5 years leave without pay to about 15,000 of its staff."We are planning to offer leave without pay for three to five years. We can consider it for about 15,000 employees," Air India CMD Raghu Menon told PTI.He, however, said those who take up the offer to go on leave would be taken back if they desire so at the same seniority and last drawn pay.

Source: http://www.indianaviationnews.net/

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New Delhi: In a bid to exploit the potential of helicopter tourism in the country, the government is working on several initiatives, including dedicated helipads and separate helicopter corridors, to promote helicopter tourism in the country.Speaking at an industry seminar, Madhavan Nambiar, civil aviation secretary, said, India has immense potential for helicopter tourism but needs the right impetus for growth.“At present, India has a fleet of 150 civilian helicopters in the country, which is expected to rise to 600 in the next few years,” Nambiar said.“There is a great demand for heli-tourism, especially in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the Northeast,” S Bannerjee, tourism secretary, said.The government is working out separate corridors for helicopters and is also creating helipads in the Capital and Mumbai, Nambiar said. The proposed helipad in Delhi is expected to be in place before 2010.A helicopter industry official, requesting anonymity, said simplifying procedures, reducing the time on ground and straightening routes, could substantially reduce operational costs.

Source: http://www.indianaviationnews.net/

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Chandigarh: The construction of the International Airport at Mohali will begin next month with the Airport Authority of India spending Rs 550 crore on the project. A joint venture company would be formed for the project between the AAI and Punjab and Haryana governments.PricewaterhouseCoopers would be the consultants for the project. The work will start with the construction of a boundary wall and levelling of the 306-acre land. These decisions were taken in a meeting on Sunday and the Haryana Government was asked to pay Rs 230 crore as its share in the project.The Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) would pay this amount to the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA).

Source: http://www.indianaviationnews.net/

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Delhi: With the 2010 Commonwealth Games fast approaching, hectic activities are on to construct India’s first fully-automated heliport in West Delhi and a temporary ‘environment-friendly’ facility near Yamuna bed.The national capital is also likely to have one helipad in each of its nine districts, with the city government allocating Rs 1 crore for the purpose.“The Delhi government has already allocated Rs 1 crore for one helipad in every district and many state governments are also earmarking funds for creation of helipads,” state-run Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd (PHHL) Chairman R K Tyagi said in an interview here.To meet the demands of the Commonwealth Games, a fully-automated heliport would be constructed in the Rohini area of West Delhi, which would act as a hub for chopper operations during the mega event, he said.Another transit facility would come up near the DND Flyover near the river Yamuna. It would be a removable steel and glass structure keeping in mind the environmental concerns, Tyagi said, adding the structures were capable of being dismantled if the need was felt after the Games.

Source: http://www.indianaviationnews.net/

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Turmoil in the US financial sector – triggered by the Lehman Brothers collapse – may prove to be yet another dampener to the international air travel. Aviation experts fear US and the Europe-bound air traffic may be hit due to the crisis which is resulting in loss of jobs.According to International Air Transport Association (IATA), the financial sector meltdown poses a much sharper economic downturn than the fuel price spike. This may lead to negative growth in travel, affecting revenue of airlines.“The collapse of US financial giants would certainly affect US-bound air travel. Europe-bound traffic is also expected to get hit as some of the big financial institutions there are also heading to a possible crisis. Also there are many companies in the country which are directly or indirectly related with these falling giants,” Amadeus India managing director Ankur Bhatia said.Home-grown airlines, such as Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines, are, however, not in a hurry to assess the impact of the financial crisis on their international operations. Kingfisher which just started overseas operation by launching a service on Bangalore-London sector doesn’t see any significant dent to its maiden flight at least in the near future.According to industry estimates, corporate travellers comprise about 63%-65 % of the country’s total inbound and outbound international air traffic.

Source: http://www.indianaviationnews.net/

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The National Aviation Company of India Limited (Nacil) is all set to make a pretty penny from its old aircraft by converting them into cargo freighters operations.The carrier, which will have a fleet of eight freighters ready by the end of this month, started converting its old aircraft after they were considered too unsafe or too old to ferry passengers. So far Air India has converted six B737-200 passenger aircraft into freighters and is in the process converting two Airbus A310 passenger aircraft.“The conversion will be done by the end September,” Air India spokesperson Jitender Bhargava said. The national aviation company will soon invite global bids for leasing out two of its A310 freighters. It already has leasing agreements with the department of post and logistics major Gati for the rest of the aircraft.“We will soon put out a Request for Proposal (RFP) to lease out the two A310 freighters aircraft,” an official said. Air India had earlier planned to deploy these configured aircaft in its cargo service but it could not find a profitable route for these freighters and therefore decided to lease them out.The leasing deal is working so well for the carrier that the department of post has requested Air India to give it more aircraft so as to raise the number of freighters to four aircraft. The DoP mainly uses the aircraft for its air mail operations to the northeastern part of the country.The national carrier made around Rs 412 crore from cargo operations in 2000-01. This has more than doubled to Rs 834 crore for the fiscal year 2007-08.The revenues from cargo contribute nearly 10% of the total revenues of the carrier.

Source: http://www.indianaviationnews.net/

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Hyderabad: A single-engine aircraft - Cessna-152 (VTEMR)- crashlanded in the thickly populated Subashnagar area in Sanatnagar here at around 11.09 am resulting in the death of assistant flight instructor Captain Neeraj Jain (24) and trainee pilot P Srinivas of the AP Aviation Academy on Monday morning. Srinivas was charred to death in the aircraft, while Jain died on the way to hospital. Jain was from Gurgaon in Delhi, while Srinivas was a resident of Sainikpuri in the city.Begumpet airport director R K Singla told ‘TOI’ that according to Air Traffic Control (ATC) records the two-seater aircraft took off at 11.07 am from the Begumpet airport and lost contact with the ATC at 11.09 am. "We are yet to ascertain the reason for the accident," he said.A team of officials from the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) would go into the cause of the accident, police said.Eyewitnesses said the aircraft hurtled down and hit an electric pole before hitting the ground. The tail of the aircraft, however, got stuck in a nearby building.

Source: http://www.indianaviationnews.net/

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New Delhi: India will be one of the key centres for design and development of the A350 aircraft, European aircraft manufacturer Airbus’ answer to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.Designing work for the A350 is the next project for the Airbus Engineering Centre India (AECI), the company’s high-tech aircraft component manufacturing facility in Bangalore, which started functioning in April last year.“The A350 is the next big project for us. The engineers at the facility are currently working on the development of tools to design the aircraft,” said Kiran Rao, president, Airbus India.Rao said Airbus was recruiting engineers for the work every month. The Centre has 35 engineers and the number is supposed to grow to 300 in the next four years. The A350 XWB (Xtra Wide Body), the new and improved version of the A350, has been built to take on the Boeing 777 family and some of the models of the Boeing 787.Airbus has been looking at various ways to use India for both component manufacture as well as leverage its research and development potential. The first manufacturing agreement was with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) in 1998 to make doors for the A320.Earlier, Airbus had outsourced its engineering projects to other Indian companies like Infosys, which participated in the designing of the A380s, HCL and other companies like CADES, Satyam and Quest.

Source:http://www.indianaviationnews.net/

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Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) is moving fast to build a second terminal, the work for which is expected to start by July next year.This additional unit will be able to handle close to 14 million passengers on a yearly basis, the same as the existing first one.The cost for the second one is expected to be close to Rs 3,000 crore, around 20 per cent more than the first. It is expected to take three years for completion and will also include the second runway as part of expansion of this airport.The going may not be as easy for BIAL, as there is stiff resistance for the second runway from the defence aviation. BIAL officials maintained that these issues are being aggressively sorted out and hoped that a solution will be reached pretty soon.Detailing these expansion plans, Albert Brunner, CEO, BIAL said that the existing terminal will be at full capacity in another 18 months. “Since the second terminal will take three years to complete, we are simultaneously pushing for an express terminal, which will be built on a faster pace of around 15 months to accommodate the increase in capacity,” he noted.This stripped down terminal will be a bridging one during the time the second one is built and may be used for ‘special purposes’ after the second terminal is ready. This airport, which on Monday, completed 100 days of operation has so far seen 2.42 million passengers, 29446 aircraft movement, and the handling of 44,357 metric tones of cargo besides seeing a 30 per cent increase in international airlines and air freight carriers into the city.

Source: http://www.indianaviationnews.net/

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New Delhi: A new software ‘Travelport Carbon Tracker’, launched by leading automated aviation ticket reservation systems company Galileo GDS, will tell “your contribution” to carbon emission when you take a particular flight.The software will also suggest to the passenger that he could select a particular flight instead of his chosen one to reduce carbon emission.“It will help in discovering routes, travellers, departments and modes of travel that contribute to total emission. This will allow corporates and individuals to decide the flight that emits less carbon per passenger,” President and CEO of Galileo GDS, Bruce Hanna, said.There are a number of flights that have high load factor during a certain time in the day. This software can compare the amount of carbon emitted during a flight from one destination to another, he added.At present, air travel contributes about 2 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions. But its contribution, in release of Green House Gas (GHG) is set to increase as 33 per cent of travellers prefer to travel by air. The Carbon Tracker would be helpful for large travel agencies and corporates who acknowledge the concern over global warming and are ready to invest for a good cause, Hanna said.Indian travel industry involves about 8 million outbound passengers, 43 million domestic travellers and about 365 million reserved train passengers.Over 5,000 travel agencies are generating a revenue of about $6.6 billion with ticket booking and ventures. “The software will be presently available with the travel agents, who by paying some charges can use it for the benefit of their customers,” Hanna said.

Source: http://www.indianaviationnews.net/

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Nasik: Nasik based Indo-Russian Aviation Ltd. (IRAL) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), are looking for regional airline operators to operate in the North Eastern region of India. The companies are already in talk with a couple of airline operators in India for starting operations in the region. Providing an insight about the complete plan, Raghvendra Aggarwal, CEO, IRAL said, “We are looking at working as a catalyst in promoting and enhancing the connectivity in the North Eastern region of India. We are in talks with few airline operators to start a regional airline in North East. We plan to provide aircraft and MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) facilities to the selected operators.” Once the airline operators for the North East region are chosen, both IRAL and HAL will look at opening aviation institutes in the region.Both IRAL and HAL are aircraft manufacturers and are looking at possibilities to start heli-tourism in the North East. On the regional airline operations, the Meghalaya government is also looking into the proposal.As reported by TravelBiz Monitor on August 19, 2008, The Development of North East Region (DoNER) has proposed an airline dedicated exclusively to the North East.

Source: http://www.indianaviationnews.net/

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ACCRA: They are the fiercest economic rivals as well as neighbours that infrequently spar over international borders. But the 'Hindi-Chini bhai bhai' bonding is hard to miss at the climate change talks in Accra. Their close coordination, bilateral understanding and strategic moves have stumped the rich countries. The industrialized countries, such as the EU members and Japan, have over the past couple of days run a shrill campaign to draw a wedge through the powerful G77 countries and China grouping and put the emerging economic power houses — India, China, Brazil and South Africa — on the mat. But China and India's working in tandem has been a key reason for the good old divide and rule policy of the rich nations' cabal coming apart. Both the countries have taken an aggressive stand against what they think is the industrialized countries' attempt to change the very character of the UNFCC — the international compact on climate change — which at present requires only the rich countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions against fixed targets. The rich countries want the four economic power houses to take commitments even though the four bear little historic burden for the crisis the world faces. "All the countries to the UNFCC decided that there would be two groups of countries — the culprits and the others who are suffering because of historical and accumulating emissions of industrialized countries," Yu Qingtai, climate change ambassador of China, told TOI.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Earth

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Ocean experts told a Senate panel last week that the oceans are in bad shape and getting worse, and called on Congress to enforce recommendations to support ocean research and increase funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA).
Experts say industrial pollution, coastal runoff and overfishing are causing serious damage to the nation's oceans and coastal waters, such as oxygen-poor "dead zones" that have already appeared in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Oregon and in Chesapeake Bay.
A rise in greenhouse gasses and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are causing the oceans to become more acidic, and from coast to coast U.S. scientists are concerned about increased algae blooms.
Leon Panetta, cochair of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative and former California congressman, says the U.S. government's policies on oceans are "dysfunctional, out-of-date and inadequate," and calls for the Senate to enact a national ocean policy.
"We have done it for clean water, we have done it for clean air, but we do not have a national ocean policy that commits this country to protecting the oceans," Panetta says.
Experts say part of the solution is to increase funding for the NOAA, but the Bush administration recently proposed a $280 million cut to the NOAA's 2007 budget, which would in turn reduce the National Ocean Service's budget by 30 percent.

Source: naturalnews.comhttp://www.naturalnews.com/

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Dr. Jim Hansen, a NASA climatologist, announced in an interview with The Independent that the world is turning into a different planet due to manmade greenhouse gas emissions.
Hansen stated that the Earth's population has less than a decade to stop global warming from changing the world forever, and noted that the effects on the climate were already observable.
"We just cannot burn all the fossil fuels in the ground," he said. "If we do, we will end up with a different planet. I mean a planet with no ice in the Arctic, and a planet where warming is so large that it's going to have a large effect in terms of sea level rises and the extinction of species."
Hansen indicated that global warming is causing dangerous "positive feedbacks" in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, which can accelerate the rate of climate change. One such feedback is the receding sea ice, which subsequently increases Arctic temperatures because the amount of sunlight and heat reflected back into space is reduced. The melting ice also releases methane, which is 20 times more dangerous as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, Hansen said.
"If we go another 10 years, by 2015, at the current rate of growth of CO2 emissions, which is about 2 percent per year, the emissions in 2015 will be 35 percent larger than they were in 2000," he said. "But if we want to get on a scenario that keeps global temperature in the range that it's been in for the last million years, we would need to decrease the emissions by something of the order of 25 percent by the middle of the century, and by something like 75 percent by the end of the century."

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com

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Malaysia Airlines said Wednesday it has teamed up with the operator of India's Hyderabad airport to set up an aircraft maintenance hub to capitalize on India's fast-growing aviation market.It is the airline's first such overseas venture and part of its efforts to boost income as it reels from high jet fuel cost.Under the pact with GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd., the Malaysian flag carrier said a maintenance, repair and overhaul center would be established to service narrow and wide-bodied aircraft at the new Rajiv Gandhi International Airport.There are currently some 300 aircraft in operation in India, with more than 200 new planes expected to take to the sky in the next two years and up to 2,000 new planes over the next decade, the airline said in a statement.Currently, most of the aircraft are sent to Malaysia and other maintenance centers overseas for heavy maintenance, it said.The airline will provide technical and management expertise in the joint venture with GMR Hyderabad, he said.

Source: http://avindia.blogspot.com

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India is considered to be one of the world's top polluters in terms of emissions, but this week the country said this week that it's not doing any harm to the world's atmosphere, despite increasing emissions of greenhouse gases.
Global temperature rises of 2 to 3 degrees Celsius are predicted in the next 50 years by experts if greenhouse gas emissions are not kept under control. If this happens, scientists agree that a devastating effect on the world's climate would be the end result.
The Kyoto Protocol does not include India at this stage, so the country has no mandate to cut emission levels. But experts say its emissions are rising because of its rapid economic development, and that soon India could become a significant contributor to global warming.
India's environment minister, A. Raja, told his parliament that India's emissions are insignificant compared to those of richer nations. He then suggested that these nations should first take the lead in curbing greenhouse gases.
Raja went on to say, "India is very little in terms of emissions and we are not the biggest polluters when compared to the developed nations … we are not doing any harm to the entire world. We are, in spite of the developmental activities taking place in this country, very categorical that our emissions are below 3 percent, which is within limits."
A survey by the World Bank in May of this year stated that carbon emissions from two of the world's fastest growing economies -- China and India -- had risen steeply over the past decade, and India alone increased carbon dioxide emissions by 33 percent between 1992 and 2002.
But, New Delhi -- India's capitol -- says it must use more energy to lift its population from poverty, and that its per-capita emissions are a fraction of those in rich states that have burned fossil fuels unhindered since the Industrial Revolution. However, according to figures from the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, the top five sources of greenhouse gases worldwide were the United States, China, Russia, India and Japan.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com

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The number of people travelling by air has fallen to 3.04 million in July, down 12.65% from a year ago, the civil aviation ministry has said.It is the sharpest fall in air passengers in the four years since India’s aviation boom started in the summer of 2004. In June this year, air passenger demand, measured by passengers flown, had shrunk 3.8% from June 2007.Airlines, fighting to contain the effects of record jet fuel prices, have raised air fares at least six times this year. The increased fares have resulted in fewer people flying. July to September is also typically a lean season for air travel.Despite airlines cutting down heavily on the number of flights—2,144 flights a week were pulled back from route maps of domestic carriers in July from nearly 11,000 weekly flights earlier—carriers are still reporting lower occupancy rates.Airlines carried 3.05 million passengers in July compared with 3.49 million in the same month of 2007. “The decline is largely a result of higher fares and essentially reflective of the higher fuel prices,” said Samyukth Sridharan, chief commercial officer of low-fare carrier SpiceJet Ltd.Deccan Aviation Ltd-run Simplifly Deccan, which is merging with Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, saw its sharpest dip in load factors—a measure of how full a flight is—at 49% in July compared with the same month in 2007 when it flew its planes 67.7% full.Other low-fare carriers SpiceJet, InterGlobe Aviation Pvt. Ltd-run IndiGo and JetLite India Ltd, too, saw their flight occupancy drop to 57.8%, 59% and 60.4%, respectively, compared with 71.4%, 71.5% and 68%, respectively, last year.Kingfisher flew its planes 63% full compared with 66.7% last year. Rivals Jet Airways, National Aviation Co. of India Ltd’s Air India and Paramount Airways India Pvt. Ltd reported 67.9%, 55.5% and 76.1% occupancy on their flights in July compared with 67%, 69.1% and 53.1%, respectively, in July 2007.
Source: http://avindia.blogspot.com

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IGI airport's new runway is almost set for commercial operations. As reported earlier by Times of India, proving flights — flights without passengers meant for carrying out trials — will land on the runway on August 21, in the presence of Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel. Henceforth, commercial operations will start in another week, depending on air traffic control clearances.The new runway, being looked forward to in the face of rising air traffic and growing congestion over Delhi, will enhance the flight handling capacity of the airport from the current about 35 flights per hour to about 55-65 flights. That's another thing that with rising aviation turbine fuel costs; several airlines have cut down on their total flights. However, congestion remains as bad as ever, with an average hovering time of 35-45 minutes during peak hours."We are much ahead of schedule and the runway will be operational a good eight months before its deadline," said I Prabhakar Rao, chief development officer, Delhi International Airport (P) Ltd (DIAL).The 4.4-km long new runway is probably one of the longest in Asia and capable of handling wide bodied aircrafts like A-380 s and Antonov An-225. Calibration work on navigational aids is almost over and according to sources, work on calibrating the instrument landing system for one side of the runway remains to be completed.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

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After the United Nations conference on climate change in Bali last December and in the run-up to its successor in Copenhagen to be held next year, countries are gearing up for the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases after 2012. The US, and President George Bush in particular, is determined to get major developing countries like China, India and Brazil to agree to some caps on their emissions of carbon dioxide. But these nations are equally adamant in refusing to do so.

And now comes a new twist. According to recent reports, the European Union is thinking of a carbon tax on goods imported from major industrial developing countries which have not agreed to cut emissions under the Kyoto regime. The EU regards this measure as a means of ensuring a level playing field by introducing a 'carbon equalisation system'.

Not to be left behind, the US Senate has tabled a bill known after its drafters, Senators Lieberman and Warner, along with other bills seeking to "protect" the US from those who haven't agreed to reduce their carbon emissions. Unlike the blanket EU proposal, the Lieberman-Warner bill is sector-specific, covering six types of energy-intensive imported goods.

Source: http://www.indiatogether.org/2008/may/env-carbontax.htm

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Welcome to the world of Aviation. In the present day we cannot think of any other means of transportation other than flying from one destination to other. However, with the growth of avaition, our planet is also facing the problem of climate changes due to various emission of GHGs from various sources including avaition. Through this blog, an attempt is made to make people aware of the Global Warming issues and the various means to minimize the effect.

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