New Technology

South Korea's Incheon International Airport was voted the best in the world for 2009 in an annual survey dominated by Asian airports. The survey, by British-based consultancy Skytrax, covered more than 190 airports and is based on the results from 8.6 million passenger questionnaires completed from 2008 to 2009. 'Incheon is an airport that has been in the global top 5 ranking for the World Airport Awards during the past 5-6 years, and it is a great achievement for them to secure this premier mark of customer satisfaction,'Skytrax CEO Edward Plaisted said.

India's flag carrier Air India, which is struggling to cope with a cash crunch, will ask for a Rs.10,000-crore (about $2 billion) bailout package from the central government, a senior official said.

Airline officials, who discussed the airline's financial problems with Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel Tuesday night, will meet top government officials again seeking help.

The minister arrived here Tuesday after attending the Paris air show.

'We are looking for at least Rs.10,000 crore bailout package. I am not sure if the government would agree on this,' said the Air India official, who did not want to be named.

Air India earlier said it was looking for a bailout package worth at least Rs.15,000 crore from the government.

Air India chairman and managing director Arvind Jadhav, Civil Aviation Secretary M. Madhavan Nambiar and other senior ministry and airline officials had met the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, T.K.A. Nair, Monday with the demands.

But they did not get any assurance from Nair.

Jadhav last week met Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar.

National Aviation Co of India Ltd (NACIL), which owns Air India, had earlier announced that it would delay the salaries of its over 31,000 employees for 15 days. The management has also asked the top executives of the airline to forgo their one month's salary.

The employees, however, did not accept the management's decision and said they would go for an indefinite strike from July 1 if the management delays their salaries.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the global aviation industry is expected to lose about $9 billion this year.

The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) says the Indian aviation industry is likely to incur around $2 billion losses this year.

After a thorough interrogation and search Indian authorities confirmed that the military cargo aircraft, which has landed in Mumbai air port yesterday was carrying medicines to the US troops operating in Afghanistan and no weapons or ammunition were on board said IAF spokesperson Wg Cdr Tarun Kumar Singha.

Speaking to ANI Wg Cdr Singha said the aircraft was hired by the US military, from a Russian agency. All the 18 persons including the crewmembers who were in the aircraft were civilians and belonged to the Russian agency.

The hired military cargo aircraft violated the Indian air space near Gujarat yesterday and was forced to land at Mumbai's Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport.

The aircraft was travelling from Diego Garcia island, a military base of the US near Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, to Kandahar in Afghanistan.

Wg Cdr Singha said that according to norms any hired civilian aircrafts for the military purposes has to get an AOR clearance form the IAF on this case the Russian agency did not obtain the clearance, the Mumbai ATR instructed the captain to land the aircraft.

He denied the report of IAF planes escorting the intruded aircraft and said the pilot followed the instruction given by the ATR, so the question of escort does not arise.

The Indian authorities have given the clearance to the aircraft to fly. Shreeraj Gudi