The board of Air India has cleared the lease of two Airbus A310-300s from Singapore Airlines, with the aircraft due to arrive by the end of the year. They will be used to expand Asian services. Air India is also expecting to start talks with Malaysia Airlines (MAS), which could lead to a codesharing agreement.
The carriers are understood to have agreed in principle to share codes between Kuala Lumpur and three new MAS destinations in India - Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai. MAS was recently awarded rights by the Indian Government to fly to the three cities, and to increase New Delhi services. Air India operates to Kuala Lumpur from Chennai, Cochin, Mumbai and New Delhi.
• An incident attributed by Indian Airlines to "severe turbulence" caused one of its Airbus A300B4-200s to experience massive altitude fluctuations, injuring 11 passengers. The aircraft (VT-EVD), en route from Chennai to Singapore on 26 September, dropped from 29,000ft (9,000m) to 19,000ft in 60s, regaining altitude before dropping from 26,000ft to 20,000ft in 34s. A local report says the flight data recorder shows the autopilot was disengaged shortly before the initial descent, although the airline declines to comment.
Source: Flight International
