Union Civil Aviation Minister

After being announced as the highest bidder of Air India with Rs 18,000 crore, Tata Sons Private Limited took over Air India, officially, on January 27. Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekhar reached Delhi and signed the agreement to officially be the owner of Air India airlines, from the Government of India. Notably, this is a historic moment for Tata Sons, as Air India returns to its founders after 68 years. 

Amid the Omicron scare, the Indian Civil Aviation Ministry announced to reconsider the resumption of international flights. Scheduled to resume on December 15, the international flight services have now been postponed. The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will take a decision and announce the same in the due course of time. In addition, the DGCA and Aviation Ministry are closely monitoring the global developments of Omicron. 

The Aviation Ministry has approved a conditional exemption for drone flight operations of 20 entities including SpiceJet, Dunzo Air Consortium and Swiggy. The one-year exemption is granted under the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Rules, 2021, and the drones have been allowed to operate beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS). The 20 entities have been selected by a committee after evaluating the Expressions of Interest by 34 participants. … read-more

Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced that an assessment made by the ministry expects domestic flights to carry two lakh passengers every day by the end of October. He added that the passenger count is expected to reach three lakhs between Diwali and the 2020 end. He further mentioned that domestic flights under 'Lifeline Udaan' travelled around 5,45,685 km and carried 940.29 tonnes in its journey. 

All flight tickets booked between March 25 and May 3 will be fully refunded by airlines, DGCA conveyed to the Supreme Court on September 6. It stated that non-refund of tickets and creating "involuntary" credit shell was a violation of Aircraft Rules (1937). Earlier, in June, the apex court had asked airline operators and the Centre to help customers by creating a credit shell with a validity of 2 years.