Dreamliner row: India rejects Japan's request for safety audit

Taking a tough stand against Japan for not permitting Air India to operate its new Boeing 787 Dreamliners there, aviation regulator DGCA has rejected a request from its Japanese counterpart to carry out a safety audit of the Indian aviation sector.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has also made it clear that Japan's insistence to have safety talks with India cannot be a condition for granting permission to Air India to fly the Dreamliners, official sources said.
They said the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau's (JCAB) should respond to DGCA's request to allow the national carrier's Dreamliner flights.
The JCAB request came several weeks ago after it refused to allow Air India operate its Dreamliners to Osaka and Tokyo, replacing the existing flights by the fuel-guzzling Boeing 777s. Air India operates four weekly flights between Delhi and Tokyo and three on Delhi-Osaka route via Hong Kong.

There is no cause for concern after the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) conducted a safety audit last month and cleared the DGCA, enabling India to maintain its 'category one' status, the top-most safety certification level, the officials said.
India, a major member of the ICAO and a signatory to its safety charter like Japan, has been cleared by the UN aviation regulatory body, they said, adding that there was no need for any member nation to carry out such audits.
After the Japanese request, Civil Aviation Secretary K N Shrivastava had written to the Indian envoy in Japan urging her to take it up with local authorities and convey to them that the Ministry saw no need for another audit after the ICAO clearance.

Following the battery-fire incidents involving the Dreamliners, JCAB had sought to know from the DGCA about the corrective steps being taken by Air India. All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines had grounded their Dreamliners for four months after the incidents which occured in their Boeing 787s.