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NEW DELHI: Kapil Gupta, was supposed to fly to San Francisco, 17 years after his first trip to US. The entrepreneur from Delhi says he has never encountered such a mismanagement in his 25 years of flying.The Air India flight was delayed by 30 hours and when it landed at San Francisco, more than 70 passengers found that their luggage weren’t loaded. “Air India, you have lost the plot. You currently don't and would never be able to compete in the global environment at this rate,” Gupta wrote on LinkedIn.As Air India apologized for the ordeal and provided a voucher of passengers of its flight to Vancouver were protesting at Delhi Airport after their flight was delayed by more than 17 hours.Old, worn out planes and a lack of engineering capacity is testing the Tata group’s mettle of overhauling Air India, multiple airline officials said.Absence of in-house engineering capacity has created hurdles for the Tata Group’s ambition to turnaround the airline. The airline is dependent on Air India Engineering Services Limited (AIESL) - the engineering subsidiary, which the government retained to sell later. It has an agreement with AIESL to use its services till 2025.“Air India’s planes are old and it is completely dependent on AIESL for their maintenance works. While we get the new planes and refurbish the old ones, it is pain staking process to deal with this,” a senior Air India official told ET.During the pre-flight check, the airline found that the water nozzles of the Boeing 777 aircraft to Vancouver, which was recently repaired at AIESL’s facility at Nagpur, weren’t working.“These are negative surprises because for servicing its planes, Air India is now completely dependent on an external company whose working culture is different,” the official said.110677076Customers flying on Air India flights to North America and Europe have been raising issues about frequent delays, broken seats or non-functional in-flight entertainment screens as the Tata group struggles to revamp the airline's fleet, some of which are 15 years old.The original aircraft for the delayed flight to San Francisco, had developed a technical snag. So, the airline had to tow a Boeing 777 which was parked under hot sun in Delhi’s 49 degree temperature. Air conditioning system in plane work.The 777 has to be refuelled by 90-tonns and with outside temperature being 46 degree, the ground air conditioning wasn’t sufficient to cool the plane. So after pushback, a lot of passengers started feeling uncomfortable forcing the aircraft to return to the bay, a persona ware of the development said.The airline had planned to invest $400 million for upgrading 40 Boeing 777 and 787 planes starting mid-2024, but the project has been deferred to 2025 due to a global supply chain crisis with vendors struggling to supply parts. To tide over this, the airline had leased 11 aircraft from Delta and Etihad."The airline tries to position these aircraft on routes to Europe and North America but when technical issues crop up at the last moment, it becomes difficult to manage as the airline has significantly expanded its long-haul network,” a person aware of the development said. The airline now operates 51 weekly flights to North America compared to 33 before privatisation.Routes to North America are the biggest revenue generators for Air India as a closure of Russian airspace for European and American airlines has made the carrier the only option for passengers who want to fly direct.Air India, a second official said, is developing its in-house engineering capabilities. It has partnered with Singapore Airlines Engineering Company for developing maintenance facilities for major engineering work in Bengaluru. The airline has also leased more than 100 acres of land at Delhi Airport to build a hangar for wide body aircraft.Simultaneously, AIESL is increasing its capabilities as Tatas mount pressure. The engineering unit has almost halved the time it takes for major maintenance work on a plane. “We are adding engineering capacities in other bases. For instance in Kolkata and Trivandrum, we can now do major maintenance work on A320 aircraft. But there is a lack of available talent in the market. As a government agency we don’t have capacity to increase salary beyond a point due to which we can’t poach experienced talent,” an AIESL official said.Experts said that it’s normal that the Tata Group is facing challenges in consolidating its airlines. “We can never underestimate the cultural and human aspects of any merger between two companies. It's never just about spreadsheets, calculations and so-called synergies, because human beings are not as neat and tidy as spreadsheets can be,” said John Strickland, founder and director of JLS Consulting.“We are talking about culture clashes, expectations, style of management, and all of those things pose problems.”

Ajax Engineering Pvt, an Indian concrete equipment maker backed by Kedaara Capital, is considering an initial public offering that could raise Rs 20 billion ($240 million), people familiar with the matter said.Ajax Engineering is working with advisers to help prepare for an IPO in Mumbai in the fourth quarter, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information. A listing could value the company at $1.2 billion, the people said, adding that it aims to file a prospectus for the share sale by August.Representatives for Ajax Engineering and Kedaara, which invested in the Bengaluru-based equipment manufacturer in 2019, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Founded in 1992, Ajax Engineering makes equipment such as concrete mixers, pumps and pavers for more than 25,000 customers, according to its website. It has three plants in Karnataka in southern India.

India’s largest airline will start 10 new destinations in FY25, as it speeds up expansion on the international front. The destinations include a mix of domestic and international. “We will be flying to Mauritius and add another destination in Thailand,” the airline’s CEO Pieter Elbers said on the sideline of the Annual General meeting of International Air Transport Association (IATA) at Dubai.At present the airline flies to 122 destinations which include 88 domestic and 33 international.The capacity expansion comes on the back of record profit in FY 24. Despite facing grounding of more than 70 planes due issues with Pratt & Whitney engines, Elbers said the airline has been able to maintain its capacity guidance.Much like its domestic strategy, IndiGo has focused on a fast expansion strategy on international routes too. The airline recently announced a major change in strategy to foray into the long haul market and have business class in their aircraft. “We now have a whole generation coming up that has never flown business class. Similarly, years ago there was a whole generation in India, that’d never taken a plane, who then became our first-time fliers,” Elbers said.The carrier, he said, sees a significant opportunity in international travel out of India. “The accumulative share of Indian carriers is significantly lower than the share of foreign carriers and clearly given the fact that the market is in India itself, that’s a bit odd. We are starting to build on getting our share in those markets and a lot of the recent initiatives are helping us regain that,” he said.The correspondent is in Dubai at invitation of IATA

German premium car maker Volkswagen India on Monday said it will offer six airbags across all variants of its 5-Star Global NCAP (GNCAP) safety-rated Taigun and Virtus models. Since the introduction of the India 2.0 product portfolio, the company said it is continuously enhancing its product offerings and has expanded its variant line-up, keeping in mind customer demand for its cars in India. While the subcompact crossover SUV Taigun was launched in India in September 2021, themed-sized sedan Virtus was rolled out in March 2022. "Our portfolio of India 2.0 cars will offer six airbags as standard across the line-up. With this, we are showcasing our commitment towards safer mobility," Brand Director at Volkswagen Passenger Cars India Ashish Gupta said. "We are also delighted to have achieved the over 1-lakh sales milestone by the Taigun and Virtus (since their introduction)," he said. Recently, Volkswagen India introduced two new variants of the Taigun GT Line with 1-litre turbo-petrol engine and GT Plus Sport with 1.5-litre turbo-petrol option.

Market regulator the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) launched 'Saa₹thi 2.0' mobile app in Mumbai on Monday. The updated Saa₹thi app has introduced a user-friendly interface with comprehensive tools aimed at simplifying complex financial concepts, a Sebi release said.It includes financial calculators, and has modules that introduce and explain KYC procedures, mutual funds, ETFs, buying and selling shares on stock exchanges, investor grievances redressal mechanism, and the Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform. Additionally, the app features a range of videos designed to assist investors in their personal finance planning.Commenting on the launch, Ananth Narayan G, Whole Time Member said the updated Saa₹thi app would prove to be an unbiased, objective, and trusted source of investment information at a time when social media is replete with biased or misleading information."The Saa₹thi app serves this purpose by empowering investors with reliable and essential insights into the securities market. This tool can be especially useful for young investors who are at the beginning of their financial journey,” Narayan G said.“The content within the app is dynamic, allowing us to keep pace with the rapidly evolving market conditions. We actively seek public suggestions to further refine and enhance the Saa₹thi app, ensuring it continues to serve our investors,” he added.The Saa₹thi app is now available for download on Google Play Store and the iOS App Store.In another development, Sebi's rumour verification framework kicked-off this Saturday where the top 100 listed companies by market capitalisation will now have to confirm or deny any market rumour reported in the mainstream media. The rule will be applicable for top 250 companies from December 1.Under this rule, these companies will have to 'confirm, deny, or clarify any reported event or information in the mainstream media that is not general in nature and that indicates that rumours of an impending specific material event' are circulating in public within 24 hours from the reporting of the information.Sebi through its newly introduced rumour verification framework has excluded the price volatility in arriving at average market price for the purpose of corporate actions in a bid to make it fair for all investors at large.(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)