Aerospace Diary

Pix Neelam Mathews (copyright) Neelam Mathews Dec 6, 2017 ShephardMedia The Indian military’s desire for UAVs will soon be boosted with further RfPs. While the army is already processing  an RfP  for mini-UAVs, India is looking to push on towards integrated army, navy and air force buys for   MALE   and HALE UAVs, for which RfIs have already been issued ...

Neelam Mathews Jan 15, 2012   The hearing of (erstwhile) Air India engineers that filed a petition 3 months back against the hiving of the engineering subsidiary and Indian Airlines engineers that filed the petition one month back (clubbed together by the Bombay High Court) will be held on Jan 16, AerospaceDiary learns. Air India management in response to the case filed by its union wrote to the court  -AerospaceDiary has viewed the contents- says: “it is permissible by law for Air India to hive off its MRO business and in any view of the matter the same cannot be the subject matter of judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution of India…..Further, it is a settled position in law that even if some persons are at disadvantage and suffer losses on account of formulation and implementation of government policy, that is not sufficient for interference by the Court.” It goes on to say: “The survival of Air India is at stake….” There are some concerns over job...

Posted by- Neelam Mathews Nov 26, 2012 We enclose a letter to the Chief Information Commissioner, New Delhi by an RTI activist even as his RTI on allegations by former IA CMD Sunil Arora against former aviation minister Praful Patel, are ignored. Sign of things to come? Sir,  Kindly refer to esteemed order dated 23.10.2012 in my petition-number CIC/SM/C/2012/001035 whereby your honour was kind enough to direct Appellate Authority at Union Cabinet Secretariat to give me an opportunity to be heard by him to ensure providing of desired information without any further loss of time. Learned Appellate Authority at Union Cabinet Secretariat Shri Subhash Chandra Garg summoned me for hearing on 20.11.2012 at 11 am, which was telephonically postponed for 6 pm on the same date. He was kind enough to allow query-numbers 1 to 4, 6, 8-12 and 14. I submitted my oral submissions towards query-numbers (5) and (7) with repeated requests to endorse these in the Appellate...

Neelam Mathews July 27, 2012 Now that the striking Air India pilots are being taken back, so much for the 'gutsy' minister of civil aviation who "refused to bend to the Air India pilots demands'! Aerospace Diary learns that the AI pilots may have got their way and it'll be back to training just Air India pilots and not the erstwhile Indian Airlines pilots on the 787s. Which, to most in the aviation sector, makes a lot of sense. It is also likely that all the Airbus-trained  (IA) pilots who trained on the 787, will return to where they came from. So much for spilt milk ...er ...I mean money. Why then, was this drama enacted? And for whom? Air India in the past two traumatic months of a country's lifetime, has managed to further lose its image in the international market and given its customers a treatment they hardly deserve for being loyal to the carrier. It certainly brought a smile on its competitors lips who saw their yields spiral as customers frown...