London - The British airport company BAA faces having to sell two of its three airports in London, following a recommendation of the British Competition Commission on Wednesday.

The commission, which monitors competition standards, said in a preliminary report due to be confirmed in April, that the airport operator should sell two of either Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted airports.

The watchdog also recommended that the BAA give up one of its two Scottish airports, Edinburgh or Glasgow.

The fixing of the User Development Fee {UDF) at Rs 375 for each
departing domestic passenger by the Centre has come as a surprise for
the GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL) on Monday
evening.

GHIAL had earlier represented to Ministry of Civil Aviation to fix UDF around Rs 725.

Since Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) had permitted the airport
operators to collect Rs 1,000 as User Development Fee (UDF) from
international passengers, the GHIAL was ready to scale down the
domestic UDF to Rs 725 per passenger.

The matter had been hanging fire for over two months. The UDF from
international passengers was being collected from June 11, 2008.

Sydney - The astonishing run of maintenance woes for Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd continues with a faulty rudder delaying a plane from London for 15 hours and an internal flight forced into an unscheduled landing because its toilets hadn't been emptied.

Qantas confirmed Monday that a "technical issue" with the rudder on a 747-400 had resulted in Sydney-bound passengers spending an extra night in London.

Almost as annoying for passengers was Sunday's impromptu stop in Adelaide after ground staff in Sydney forgot to empty toilet tanks on a flight that was bound for Perth.

"Four out of seven toilets were not flushing so for the comfort of our passengers we diverted to Adelaide," a Qantas spokesman said.

From 23rd August, 2008, Jet Airways will start its daily flights from Dubai to Mumbai and Delhi.

In the airline’s Gulf network, Dubai will be its sixth destination while second in UAE. Jet Airways’ Dubai flights will complement the airline’s daily services from various gateway points in India to Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Muscat and Doha.

The airline Virgin Blue will charge customers to check in baggage on discounted

The Indian Air Force today got the delivery of the first indigenously assembled Hawk MK-132 advanced jet trainer by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). Air Chief Marshal, F Major was the one who was formally handed over the aircraft.

By the handing over the HAL’s first Adour powered Hawk AJT at Bangalore, it is for sure that there would the beginning of a new chapter for the public sector company engaged in defense production.

“The IAF is acquiring 66 Hawk MK-132 AJT aircraft of which 24 are being supplied by BAE Systems in a flyaway condition. The remaining 42 will be built by HAL at its aircraft division here under licence in three phases,” as reported by Mr Ashok Baweja, chairman, HAL