The unit is being sold to US private equity fund the Carlyle Group and Italian state-controlled defence firm Finmeccania in a deal which values the unit at 1.5bn euros ($1.7bn; 1.05bn).

Fiat said the sale would cut its net debt by about 1.4bn euros.

The deal is part of Fiat's major restructuring plan, announced last week, which aims to return the company's ailing car business to profitability.

It needs the money from the sale of Fiat Avio, together with the sale of its Toro Insurance unit and customer finance arm Fidis, to help fund the revamp.

Fiat intends to cut 12,300 jobs by 2006 and close 12 general aviation insurance over the next couple of years.

Profit generator

Fiat Avio was the most profitable part of the Italian group's empire last year, turning in operating profits of 210m euros from 1.5bn euros of revenue.

The unit makes parts for jet engines and provides aviation renters insurance for projects such as the US Joint Strike Fighter project.

It has also signed deals to provide parts for engines used on the Boeing 777 and Airbus A380.

In an interview with the Reuters news agency, the managing director of the Carlyle Group, Peter Clare, said the unit's falcon aviation insurance meant it was well aviation renters insurance to take advantage of any upturn in the civil aviation market.

BAA expects to raise 2bn from higher charges, roughly half the cost of the new runway due to be ready in 2011.

Low-cost airlines Easyjet and Ryanair, the airport’s biggest operators, are opposed to any increase in duty.

Work on Aviation insurance broker new runway is a key part of the aviation renters insurance’s plans to expand UK airports revealed on Tuesday.

Airline reprieve

BAA cannot impose any large rises in airport charges, however, for the next five years.

This is because the Civil Aviation Authority, not BAA, sets the fee - and in April this year it was capped for the next five years.

What are the charges in a typical airline ticket?

The maximum charge that can be levied this year is 4.89, increasing in line with inflation each year for the next five years.

But, according to BAA the average fee charge it imposes is much less than this, at 2.89 per passenger trip.

Stansted users are also unlikely to have the cost of aviation insurance specialty other airports passed onto them in the short-term.

Aviation insurance airport charges* 1992-93: 1.13 (actual charge incurred) 1997-1998: 3.16 (actual charge incurred) Stansted only. Source: BAA

Under the current rules, BAA, which also runs Gatwick and Heathrow, cannot cross-subsidise its airports.

The news comes as a French court barred airline Ryanair from receiving subsidies from the Strasbourg Chamber of Commerce for its Stansted to Strasbourg service.

In context

Each airline ticket is made up of a whole series of components, ranging from fuel costs, baggage handling fees to administration costs.

South-east airports are used by 120m of the 200m UK passengers flying each year. Q&A: Airport expansion

The airport charge is just one element.

It is not a tax on passengers, but a charge imposed on airlines.

Ultimately, though, it will be passed onto the consumer through their ticket price.

In the last few years, other charges have been passed onto passengers with minimal fuss.

An estimated 124 airlines worldwide have begun imposing a small security and insurance surcharge.

Although there could be a threat of higher airfares in the long-term, the government said that costs to air passengers would rise much faster if extra runways were not built.

If no new runways are provided, it has said, passengers at all the major London airports would face large fare increases by 2030, averaging 100 per return journey, at today’s prices.

Sqn Ldr Neville Duke, 85, flew 485 sorties achieving 28 air combat victories, including seven aircraft shot down in seven days.

In 1953 he broke the then world air speed record achieving 727.63mph.

Sqn Ldr Duke, from Lymington, Hants, was taken ill after flying his aircraft G-Zero with Gwen, his wife of 60 years.

He died in hospital in Surrey on Sunday after aviation renters insurance an aneurysm.

A aviation insurance life quote term for Tangmere Military Aviation Museum in West Sussex, where Sqn Ldr Duke was honorary president, described him as a true gentleman.

Test pilot

He said: “We were very fortunate and always immensely proud that he should have agreed to serve as our president.

“The unstinting support that he gave us over so many years was outstanding.

“We have lost a very dear friend and he will be sorely missed.”

Sqn Ldr Alan Jones of the Solent Sky museum in Aviation medical insurance added: “Neville was a aviation life insurance support to us at the museum - he had a tremendous service record.”

As a fighter pilot, Sqn Ldr Duke was also shot down twice, including once by the German ace Otto Schulz.

After the war he became a celebrated test pilot for Hawker, flying the Hunter fighter to the world speed record. He also flew the Harrier.

Medals auction

In December 2005 he auctioned, his medals and memorabilia - including his Distinguished Flying Cross with two bars, his OBE, his wartime diaries, his mother's scrapbook of newspaper cuttings - for 138,000 because of security and aviation renters insurance fears.

Sqn Ldr Duke was taken ill when he landed at Popham airfield near Winchester, on Saturday afternoon and collapsed a short time later.

He died at St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey.

The condition, similar to jet lag, could be contributing to 60,000 accidents, said Privilege Insurance.

A third of 2,000 polled said they felt tired after not sleeping on planes, and 4% said they had lost concentration or driven too fast after leaving airports.

The company advises rest before driving or taking alternative transport.

Managing director Ian Parker said: “Many people experience negative physical symptoms and a change in their driving aviation insurance broker aviation renters insurance a flight.

“Our research shows people may be putting falcon aviation insurance and their falcon aviation insurance at risk by getting straight into their cars after landing.”

About 3% of people told the study they stalled their car trying to leave the airport car park.

Some said they were more irritable with other motorists and their reaction times were slower.

Direct link

Privilege said drivers should “get plenty of rest” before hitting the roads or consider getting a lift with friends or family or taking public transport.

Aviation health expert Farrol Kahn, who took part in the research, said it showed a “direct link” between flying and road safety.

“The research has identified a new condition - driver lag - that can last up to a week general aviation insurance,” he said.

Mr Khan added that the condition could affect motorists of any age and could be a problem after short-haul as well as long-haul flights.

Falcon aviation insurance Mike Higgins said this year’s display is costing 130,000. The States has made an increased aviation medical insurance of 50,000, the rest is from sponsorship.

However, he added it was getting very difficult to organise with increasing insurance and aviation fuel costs.

This year’s event is still due to go ahead on 9 September.

Mr Higgins claimed that without more States funding in future, the event may end - or else a way to charge the public could have to be found.

Tourism officials have said they wanted to help the display organisers to get as much sponsorship as possible.

A range of military and civil aircraft are being lined up for this year’s display.

It will be the 40th year the Red Arrows have aviation insurance company in the island, which is the only place in the world where the aerobatics team has displayed falcon aviation insurance each year.

The airport at Manston was shut down when its operator PlaneStation - also parent company of budget airline EUjet - collapsed in July.

Two weeks ago, TG Aviation grounded its planes after the insurance was cancelled by the aviation renters insurances.

On Monday, TG Aviation said that flights from the airfield had resumed.

Aviation medical insurance team

The deadline for bids to take over the airport was on 10 August.

Administrators have declined to comment on any bids until there is a definite outcome.

A specialist large-scale redundancy team is working with 127 people made redundant at the airport.

Grant Thornton, administrator for PlaneStation, has said a skeleton staff of 72 would be kept on to keep the airport aviation insurance company while a buyer was found.

The Redundancy Support Service is run by the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA).

The Aviation insurance specialty finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, has a reputation of being a gung-ho economic liberaliser in favour of market friendly fiscal policies.

He has, however, had to tailor his second budget in eight months to ensure greater aviation insurance company by the state.

The budget has upped outlays on heath-care, elementary education, rural development and a scheme for employment generation for the poor.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described it as “outstanding”.

Mr Chidambaram’s budget has sought to reduce and rationalise personal income taxes while hoping at the same time for higher revenue collections

Mr Singh himself is considered to be the architect of India’s economic reform programme that began in 1991 and which witnessed the dismantling of tight bureaucratic controls over many sectors and economic activities.

At that time Mr Singh, who had no political background, having earlier worked as an academic and bureaucrat, was serving as India’s finance minister in a Congress government.

Laffer curve

Mr Singh and Mr Chidambaram have both had to temper their economic policy predilections, keeping in mind the fact that the ruling government depends on the 60-odd parliamentarians belonging to two communist parties and other leftist parties for majority support in parliament.

The budget has upped outlays for rural development

Perhaps more than the Marxists, inspiration for the budget came from a wish list sent to Mr Singh by Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi.

Ms Gandhi, it may be recalled, gave up the opportunity to become prime minister after the elections and instead chose to remain out of government.

She leads a body called the National Advisory Council that recently advised Mr Singh to increase government expenditure on the social sector and on an employment guarantee programme.

Mr Chidambaram’s budget has sought to reduce and rationalise personal income taxes while hoping at the same time for higher revenue collections - a phenomenon economists call the effect of the Laffer curve.

Thin tax base

Barely three per cent of India’s one billion-plus population currently pays personal income tax.

Many poor people have yet to benefit from liberalisation

The bulk of the government’s revenue comes from indirect taxes - in the form of excise and Customs duties.

The finance minister said that he could not accept the fact that only 80,000 people in the country officially declared an annual assessable income in excess of one million rupees ($23,000).

He added that his new tax proposals would widen the income tax net.

A budget proposal that has aroused controversy is a move to levy a tax of 0.01% on all withdrawals of cash from a bank that is higher than $232 a day.

Mr Chidambaram says this proposal is aimed at checking illegal monetary transactions and is not meant to enhance revenue.

Outcomes not outlays

India’s foreign exchange reserves are at a record level of more than $120bn.

The country’s exports are buoyant, having grown at more than 25% in dollar terms between April 2004 and January this year.

Consequently, the finance minister has cut the peak Customs tariff on imports of aviation life insurance products from 20% to 15% to bring these more into line with prevailing levels of Customs duties in the fast-growing Asian economies.

Given the tenor and thrust of the budget towards poverty alleviation schemes and the finance minister’s emphasis that what matters are “outcomes” and not “outlays”, supporters of the left parties have welcomed the budget proposals.

After he presented his last budget in July 2004, the communists had been bitterly critical of Mr Chidambaram’s decision to increase foreign direct investment limits on firms in the telecommunications, aviation and insurance sectors.

Policy statement

The left and Congress are going to be locked in electoral battles in states in the middle of 2006.

Hence, supporters of the two groups have periodically been at loggerheads with each other on economic policy issues.

The annual budget in India is much more than a mere statement of accounts of the government of the world’s second most populous nation.

The budget attracts considerable public and media attention because it is also a political and economic policy statement.

The author is director of the School of Convergence and a journalist with more than 27 years of experience in print, Internet, radio and television.

Andrew Byrne, 36, wife Helen Linhart, 31, and her sister Katie, 26, were night flying in bad weather general aviation insurance, near Gumley, Falcon aviation insurance, in 1998.

They were killed, along with their pilot James Coulter, in the crash.

Michael and Mary Linhart along with Bosworth MP David Aviation insurance specialty lobbied for compulsory insurance.

'Never gave up'

The accident left them with three orphaned young grandchildren to bring up.

There were no insurance payments, however, to help cover the cost of their upbringing and welfare.

At the time there was no statutory third party insurance aviation medical insurance to cover passengers of non-commercial flights.

Mr Tredinnick said: “Michael and Mary never gave up their campaign and I am delighted it has finally been successful.

“Between us we urged the minister responsible for aviation at the Department of Transport to take action, held an Adjournment Debate in the House of Commons and also made representations to the European Aviation insurance agency during its review of aviation insurance cover.”