Section

Skywatch

Comprehensive coverage of regulation & skywatch, featuring analysis, investigations, trackers, and expert commentary from the Tailwind Times editorial team.

Watchdog Charter

Public safety depends on transparency. Tailwind Times tracks reports, audits, investigations, circulars, delays, and accountability gaps to raise the bar across Indian and global aviation.

AllSkywatchThe WatchdogGovernment & Regulatory AffairsPassenger Rights & Consumer Aviation

Skywatch

NASA's New Boeing 777 Laboratory Makes Climate Research A Widebody Mission

Aviation Desk|16 Oct 20265 min

SkywatchGovernment & Regulatory Affairs

A False Hijack Code, A Jaipur Diversion And The Fragile Trust Behind The Transponder

Aviation Desk | 15 Oct 2026 · 06:20

SkywatchThe Watchdog

DGCA Banks One Power Bank Aviation Safety Now Has A Consumer-Electronics Problem

Aviation Desk | 15 Oct 2026 · 06:09

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Nipun Aggarwal's Underused-Airports Argument Deserves A Harder Audit

Aviation Desk | 15 Oct 2026 · 05:43

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Contrails Are Becoming Aviation's Next Operational Battleground

Aviation Desk | 15 Oct 2026 · 05:14

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Riyadh Changed The World Route Map

Aviation Desk | 13 Oct 2026 · 01:56

A strike on Riyadh airport is not only a Saudi emergency. It changes the calculations of airline security teams, dispatchers, insurers, crews and passengers across the Gulf including Indian travellers whose flight may never have been scheduled to land in Riyadh.

SkywatchThe Watchdog

The Cockpit Axe Case Will Reshape Pilot Vetting

Aviation Desk | 13 Oct 2026 · 01:55

An airline can check a licence, a medical certificate and a criminal record. It cannot search a cockpit for a thought.

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Hurricane Simon Shows Airports Are Climate Infrastructure

Aviation Desk | 13 Oct 2026 · 01:55

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Air Cargo's New Choke Point Is Not The Runway. It Is The Warehouse.

Aviation Desk | 13 Oct 2026 · 01:53

An aircraft can arrive exactly on time and still fail its customer. The cargo may be sitting metres from the runway, inside a warehouse, waiting for a document, a forklift, a customs release, a cold room slot, a truck dock or a trained person with the authority to move it.

SkywatchThe Watchdog

The Dispatcher Who Redraws The Map

Aviation Desk | 13 Oct 2026 · 01:52

A missile strike appears on the news. In an airline operations room, someone begins moving the world.

SkywatchThe Watchdog

The World Comes To Lisbon But Who Can Afford Aviation Tech Now?

Aviation Desk | 13 Oct 2026 · 01:52

SkywatchGovernment & Regulatory Affairs

The Power Bank That Changed IndiGo's Flight Plan, Do Not Wait For A Flame

Aviation Desk | 12 Oct 2026 · 08:01

One smoking device diverted an aircraft. The larger safety question is whether passengers understand the batteries they bring aboard.

SkywatchGovernment & Regulatory Affairs

UDAN's Next Phase: 21 Agreements, But Where Are The Aircraft?

Aviation Desk | 12 Oct 2026 · 07:36

India has secured state participation for a much larger regional-aviation programme. The agreements can prepare airports, but they cannot guarantee an airline, an aircraft or a flight that survives its subsidy.

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Missiles Have Hit Riyadh Airport Left 12 People Dead 309 Injured

Aviation Desk | 11 Oct 2026 · 08:06

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Avolon's 250 Aircraft Order Shows Who Really Decides What Airlines Fly

Aviation Desk | 11 Oct 2026 · 07:13

SkywatchThe Watchdog

The 'Not-Unsafe' Software Problem Pilots Still Have To Fly With

Aviation Desk | 11 Oct 2026 · 06:49

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Jewar’s New Name and the Airport India Must Build

Aviation Desk | 10 Oct 2026 · 06:57

Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong show that an airport can be far more than a transport facility. Though each is geographically compact, its airport acts as a diplomatic front door, a trade platform and a strategic instrument. Narendra Modi International Airport has the scale and location to be the confident diplomatic and economic mission to the world.

SkywatchThe Watchdog

ForeFlight Wants Pilots To Use AI To Make Faster Decisions or Faster Mistakes?

Aviation Desk | 10 Oct 2026 · 05:51

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Twenty-Five Years After 9/11, Aviation Is Still Redesigning The Cockpit Door Problem

Aviation Desk | 9 Oct 2026 · 05:14

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Rising Airfares Attracts Fuel Surcharge In The Festive Season

Aviation Desk | 9 Oct 2026 · 04:47

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Every Aircraft Can Survive A Lightning Strike. The Real Test Is How Quickly The System Recovers

Aviation Desk | 8 Oct 2026 · 07:30

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Delta Is Flying Into Riyadh. Does That Mean The Gulf Conflict Is Ending.

Arun Malhotra, Editor, Tailwind Times | 7 Oct 2026 · 06:24

Delta’s planned first flight from Atlanta to Riyadh on October 23 may become a milestone in Saudi aviation. Whether we mistake it for a ceasefire signal or 'NOT?'

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Europe's Safety Chiefs Are Worried About Runway Incursions, Near-Miss and GNSS Interference

Aviation Desk | 7 Oct 2026 · 06:01

SkywatchGovernment & Regulatory Affairs

India Wants Workers' Faces To Become Access Cards. What Could Go Wrong?

Aviation Desk | 7 Oct 2026 · 04:47

SkywatchGovernment & Regulatory Affairs

Who Benefits If Flights Move Before Passengers Are Ready To Move With Them?

Aviation Desk | 7 Oct 2026 · 04:22

SkywatchGovernment & Regulatory Affairs

Navi Mumbai Shift: 265 Flights, 46 Airlines, One Meeting

Aviation Desk | 5 Oct 2026 · 05:23

SkywatchThe Watchdog

IATA's Safety Conference Opens In Istanbul

Aviation Desk | 5 Oct 2026 · 04:56

The question hanging over IATA’s World Safety and Operations Conference is no longer whether aviation has mental-health policies. It is whether those policies can identify a pilot in difficulty early enough, without turning every cockpit medical into a surveillance exercise or driving people away from seeking help.

SkywatchThe Watchdog

AI-Assisted Air Traffic Management: Washington and Montreal

Aviation Desk | 5 Oct 2026 · 04:41

The FAA’s new SMART system is designed to spot a delay while it is still a forecast, not after it has become a line of aircraft waiting for a gate, runway slot or clear patch of weather. It is being tested around Washington.

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Who Pays For Green Jet Fuel? Different Answers.

Aviation Desk | 5 Oct 2026 · 04:08

SkywatchThe Watchdog

A Suspected Drone Shuts Vinius Airport

Aviation Desk | 4 Oct 2026 · 06:42

Vilnius airport closed for less than an hour on October 3rd after Lithuania detected an unidentified object approaching from the Belarusian direction.

SkywatchThe Watchdog

FAA Decides The MAX Glitch Does Not Need An Order

Aviation Desk | 4 Oct 2026 · 06:18

SkywatchThe Watchdog

Did Oman Air Ban flydubai Co-Pilot For Radicalization? Middle Path Is To Get A 'Blacklist' Released.

Aviation Desk | 3 Oct 2026 · 07:27

An airline can verify that a pilot holds a valid licence. It is much harder to learn why that pilot left another employer, particularly when the facts sit behind privacy law, employment law, security classifications and a reluctant former employer.

SkywatchGovernment & Regulatory Affairs

Plan To Make India's DGCA Independent

Aviation Desk | 3 Oct 2026 · 06:30

India’s aviation market is expanding at airline speed, its regulator still operates at ministry speed. The proposal to replace the Directorate General of Civil Aviation with a statutory Civil Aviation Authority of India is an attempt to close that gap.

SkywatchThe Watchdog