INDIGO PLANE AVOIDS LANDING ON ROAD WITH SECONDS LEFT

An IndiGo aircraft mistook a road running parallel to the Jaipur airport as the runway while coming in to land, setting off alarms that prompted the pilots to pull up barely a few hundred feet from the ground.

Sources said the plane – Ahmedabad-Jaipur flight 6E-237 — was hardly 900 feet, or less than 1.5 minutes, away from touchdown when the enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS) blared in the cockpit.

An aircraft descends at around 700 feet-a-minute during approach. The EGPWS is an audio warning in the cockpit capable of waking up a sleeping pilot.

Both pilots have been grounded by the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA), which has ordered a probe into the February 27 incident.

Sources said the pilots had switched off the auto pilot and had been cleared to land at runway 27 of Jaipur airport.

COCKPIT COCKTAIL - More than 40 pilots were drunk on duty in India last year—most work for Jet Airways and IndiGo

Fasten your seat belts.

Pilots in India can’t stop hitting the bottle before entering the cockpit—and the most frequent offenders in recent years are from Jet Airways and IndiGo, two airlines that dominate the country’s aviation market.

In 2015 alone, 43 pilots in the country tested positive for alcohol during pre-flight examinations. That’s the highest number in the last three years, according to data presented by the civil aviation ministry in parliament on May 05.

This year, so far, 13 pilots have turned up drunk to work.

Jet Airways, India’s second largest carrier, has had the maximum number of pilots reporting to work drunk. Since 2013, some 38 pilots at Jet Airways (including JetLite) have showed up to work under the influence. Jet was followed by IndiGo, where 25 pilots tested positive for alcohol.

From Auto Driver to Airline Pilot. This Man's Fascinating Story

There's a new man on IndiGo's pilot roster. And it's not just any ordinary man. From driving a three-wheeled auto rickshaw to flying an aircraft - which also ironically is three-wheeled - Shrikant Pantawane's story is a fascinating one - stuff that dreams are made of.

IndiGo, on Monday shared on micro-blogging site Twitter, an excerpt of Mr Pantawane's exceptional story which features in their in-house magazine for the month.

Born and raised in Nagpur, Mr Pantawane's father worked as a security guard.

His humble background meant, Mr Pantawane had to start earning early and he juggled school with a job as a delivery boy, driving around in an auto.

It was during an airport delivery that Mr Pantawane struck up a conversation with a tea-stall vendor there and learnt of the pilot scholarship program run by aviation regulator DGCA or the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

Youth promised Indigo jobs, duped

New Delhi: A 22-year-old unemployed Kashmiri youth was among dozens allegedly duped by a gang posing as senior officials of the Indigo Airlines.

Not only did the victims lose their money, they were also fooled into travelling to Delhi on the pretext of appearing for interviews for a purported job as ground staff or cabin crew at Delhi’s domestic airport.
The victims realized they were being taken for a ride only, five days after they arrived in Delhi to appear for the job interviews. The victims caught two members of the gang following a brief scuffle and handed them over to the police.
The victims alleged that they are receiving death threats from other gang members located in Kashmir. Police said they are interrogating the nabbed suspects and efforts are on to arrest other members of the syndicate. A case in this connection has been registered at Jama Masjid police station .
KashmirMonitor

INDIGO PILOTS AND CABIN CREW GETS SALARY BONUS

IndiGo has announced a bonus for its pilots and cabin crew for a fifth year, five per cent of their annual salary, with this month's pay.

IndiGo is the most-profitable and fastest-growing domestic airline. In 2013-14, the profit was Rs 317 crore; it has 93 Airbus A320 planes.

It is also the highest recruiter among local airlines, with a little over 8,200 employees. This includes about 1,300 pilots and 2,300 cabin crew. However, it has also lost pilots to Gulf airlines and the bonus will help it to check such attrition. Last year, 40 pilots quit the airline.

A majority of the pilots who are leaving or had left are junior commanders, seeking career progression and transition to wide-body aircraft such as the Boeing 777 or Airbus A380. Junior commanders earn Rs 4-4.5 lakh a month; first officers earn Rs 2-2.5 lakh.

Said an arline spokesperson on the bonus: 'This is in line with our past practice. IndiGo has declared a bonus to its crew in seven out of the eight years of its existence. This is the fifth year in a row that IndiGo has paid an annual bonus to crew members. Non-crew employees are given regular performance-based annual increments."

- BS

INDIGO MAY GO FOR IPO AFTER BIG AIRBUS A320NEO ORDER

Indian low-cost carrier IndiGo has given Airbus its largest single order by number of aircraft, agreeing to buy 250 new A320neos. A successful initial public offering in still tumultuous air transport market conditions will be key to funding the order and would cement IndiGo’s position as India’s leading domestic airline.

The IndiGo story is one of unusual success. As essentially all of its competitors flounder with frozen accounts, grounded airplanes and massive losses, IndiGo’s focus on execution of its sharply defined business model has helped it to remain consistently profitable and growing. Analysts say IndiGo’s approach not only kept it in the black, but also enabled it to build a loyal customer base in a short period. Its aircraft sale and lease-back strategy also aided in improving its balance sheet.

The airline, established in 2006, has recorded the highest load factors among domestic carriers in the past several years.

DGCA CLEARS SCHEDULE, 60 EXTRA FLIGHTS DAILY THIS WINTER

India's largest domestic airline by market share, IndiGo, is now also the fastest growing one. The directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) Monday cleared the schedule of domestic flights this winter which will be effective by this month-end.

Only low-cost carriers IndiGo and GoAir will be operating more flights this winter than they did last year. All other Indian carriers have cut flights. But thanks to these IndiGo and Go and new launches Tata Group's AirAsia India, this winter will see almost 60 more flights everyday — something that is expected to help check help the steep hike in fares in the coming peak travel season.

INDIGO COULD PLACE BIG AIRCRAFT ORDER EARLY 2015

Low-cost carrier IndiGo is close to placing a large order worth billions of dollars for a variety of aircraft and could reach a decision as early as 2015, according to several industry sources.

IndiGo, India's largest airline by market share, could pick up a combination of regional planes that can seat up to 100 passengers, narrowbody aircraft such as the Airbus Group NV (AIR.PA) A320s that it already operates, and widebody jets for launching medium- to long-haul services, said Binit Somia, the director of South Asia at industry consultancy CAPA, at a conference on Tuesday. He added that an order was imminent.

Two other industry sources familiar with orders by Indian airlines confirmed that the airline was actively looking for aircraft and could make a decision by early 2015. Both sources declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

The secret of IndiGo’s consistent profits

When IndiGo, India's largest airline by passengers carried, reported a profit of Rs 787 crore in the 2013 financial year, it stunned many in a manner unusual for an earnings broadcast. Aviation has always been a thorny industry, one as is said only half in jest that makes millionaires out of billionaires, but Indian aviation has stood out as notoriously brutal owing to high taxes and costly airport charges.

The year to March 2013 also happened to be the worst in recent years due to a steep increase in fuel prices and weakening rupee. During the year, Kingfisher Airlines shut shop and IndiGo's competitors made losses of more than $1 billion.

But IndiGo emerged unaffected from the wreckage. The latest numbers, revealed by IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh on September 24, burnished the airline's reputation as the lone Indian carrier to prosper in a troubled industry.

Even so, the quantum of profit was astonishing. Indi-Go's profit had increased six-fold from a year ago. The profit surpassed a projection of $100-110 million (around Rs 550-610 crore based on the then exchange rate) by the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), an aviation consulting and research firm. IndiGo's own estimate done three years ago presaged a modest profit of Rs 57.5 crore in 2012-13.

Soaring Profits

INDIGO's RAHUL BHATIA HAS REDEFINED A BUDGET AIRLINE

In early October, InterGlobe Enterprises, a $2.6 billion (revenues) travel and hospitality group, best known for its efficient budget airline IndiGo, will have completed 25 years. No huge celebrations are in store to mark the milestone. Group managing director Rahul Bhatia will address an all-staff meeting broadcast from InterGlobe’s headquarters in Gurgaon, near Delhi, and then it will be business as usual. “Why spend all that money?” shrugs Rahul.

Fanatical cost-consciousness has lifted IndiGo, a rank newcomer eight years ago, to the top of India’s airline market. As per August data tracked by India’s airline regulator, the privately held carrier that has carried 84 million passengers to date has a third of all domestic passengers (Rahul and dad Kapil Bhatia, InterGlobe’s executive chairman, own 51 percent). Media baron Kalanithi Maran’s SpiceJet, lately a discount warrior, is a distant No 2 with close to one-fifth share. Airline tycoon Naresh Goyal’s 21-year-old Jet Airways, co-owned by Etihad Airways, trails in the third spot. While SpiceJet and Jet have been racking up losses, IndiGo makes money and has been doing so since 2009. In the fiscal year till March 2013, the latest for which official numbers are available, it reported net profits of $130 million on revenues of $1.6 billion.