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/

Read More...

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/

Read More...

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/

Read More...

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/

Read More...

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/

Read More...

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/

Read More...

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/

Read More...

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/

Read More...

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/

Read More...