Vacancies, Fund Cuts Mar Indian Aviation, Air Safety; Air India Could Have Managed Post-Crash Communication Better, says Tata Chief; One Day English Speakers in India will be Ashamed, says Amit Shah

Indians in Israel to be Evacuated Says MEA, Anil Ambani Company to Join Dassault to Manufacture Business Jets, Nationalisation is a Dishonourable Construct

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK

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Over to Sidharth Bhatia for today’s Cable

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Snapshot of the day

June 19, 2025

Sidharth Bhatia

India's aviation sector served over two times as many passengers in 2024 (161 million) than in 2014 (66 million), yet it suffers funding and personnel shortages, Kunal Purohit finds. The civil aviation ministry's funding has shrunk over the last two years and so has its capital outlay (by 91% at that, something that earned the attention of a parliamentary committee); and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation regulator has also seen its purse strings tighten while it deals with a climbing number of vacancies, which a former official said was hampering its functions such as conducting surprise spot checks. Other departments that are affected by shortages are air traffic control and the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Udan Akademi that trains pilots, Purohit writes.

Purohit's report comes as we mark a week since Air India flight AI171's fatal crash in Ahmedabad. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft involved in the accident had one engine that was installed only three months ago, while the other one was due to be serviced at the end of this year, Tata Sons chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran has said in an interview to Times Now. One expert pointed out speaking to Nikita Yadav however that