DGCA

On Thursday, 73 flights were cancelled at Bengaluru airport, its spokesperson said. Around 30 were cancelled in Delhi, and 68 in Hyderabad, and 85 IndiGo flight cancellations were planned for Mumbai

200 more flights cancelled on Thursday; chaos at airports across India

IndiGo told the DGCA that flight disruptions may continue as the airline grapples with planning gaps and pilot shortages linked to FDTL rules. It will cut flights from December 8 to stabilise ops

IndiGo cancelled over 300 flights in the last two days across India, causing widespread delays and leaving thousands of passengers stranded across major airports

Airline Pilots' Association of India (ALPA) on Wednesday said the operational disruptions at IndiGo due to crew issues point to a failure of proactive resource planning by dominant airlines, and claimed that there could also be an effort to pressurise regulator DGCA to dilute the new flight duty time limitation norms. IndiGo on Wednesday said there have been significant operational disruptions due to a multitude of factors, including Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) issues. Sources said the airline cancelled more than 100 flights on Wednesday. "The situation concerning the recent flight cancellations across India allegedly attributed to pilot shortage due to new FDTL norms, raises significant questions about the airline's management, regulatory oversight by the DGCA, and market fairness," ALPA said in a statement. The second phase of the revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) norms, which provides for increased rest period and a lesser number of night landings, came into eff

The airline's 164-seater Airbus A320 aircraft, with an expired airworthiness review certificate (ARC), flew eight times on November 24 and 25

The incident raised concerns as it came months after the deadly London-bound Dreamliner crash in June that killed 260 civilians

In a statement, the regulator said a total of 323 A320 family planes of IndiGo, Air India and Air India Express - which are "operational" - have been upgraded

As many as 338 A320 family aircraft operated by Indian airlines require the software upgrade to address a potential issue related to flight controls and modifications have been carried out in more than half of the affected fleet, according to DGCA data. Sources told PTI that there are no flight cancellations but there are delays in the range of 60-90 minutes for some flights as the software updates are being carried out for the affected planes. On Friday, Airbus said intense solar radiation might corrupt data critical to flight controls in a significant number of A320 family aircraft and that the software changes required to fix the issue would lead to operational disruptions. The software upgrades have been completed for 189 A320 family planes out of the total 338 aircraft, as per the data available with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) till 10 am on November 29. The software upgrades on all the affected planes are to be completed by 5:29 am on November 30. DGCA o

The new rules were released after DGCA met with airlines and pilot associations in New Delhi to discuss duty hours and rest hours

Air India has cancelled at least 11 flights since Monday and is conducting precautionary inspections on aircraft that flew over areas affected by ash plumes from the volcanic eruption in Ethiopia

The regulator has asked airlines to strictly avoid ash-affected airspace, revise flight planning and enhance monitoring after the Hayli Gubbi volcano eruption sent a plume drifting toward Indian skies

Aviation safety regulator DGCA has convened a meeting with airline operators and pilots' bodies in New Delhi next week to discuss various issues related to the cockpit crew's duty and rest norms following the regulator making certain relaxations, including allowing more night landings and duty time extension for two-pilot Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft operations. The latest flight duty time limitation norms, which entail increased weekly rest periods to 48 hours, extension of night hours, and limiting the number of night landings to only two as against six earlier were initially opposed by the domestic airlines, including IndiGo and Air India. But they were subsequently rolled out by the DGCA following the Delhi High Court's directives, albeit after a delay of over one year and in a phased manner with the first phase in June and second phase this month. "The DGCA has called a meeting on Monday with the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) and Airlines' Pilots Association (ALPA-India)

Reporting such incidents was already mandatory under a DGCA circular issued in November 2023, but this is the first time the regulator has set a specific deadline for doing so

A two-judge bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a petition filed by Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, the father of Commander Sumeet Sabharwal, in a case about the Air India crash

Regulator invites public feedback till November 30 before finalising new refund rules for airlines

Earlier this year, DGCA, in its affidavit before the Delhi High Court, said new FDTL norms will be implemented in a phased manner

The aviation regulator issued the clarification after pilots' body ALPA India urged it to withdraw the relaxation, arguing that the move could lead to fatigue-induced errors

After facing multiple setbacks, the ailing carrier is far from its goal of achieving operational break-even by the end of March next year and has sought ₹10,000 cr from Tata Sons, Singapore Airlines

Aviation watchdog DGCA plans to put in place a competency-based training and assessment framework for cabin crew to help in further improve the training imparted to them, according to a senior official. The Competency Based Training and Assessment (CBTA) framework was introduced for pilots in 2022. Shweta Singh, Chief Flight Operations Inspector at the DGCA, told PTI that the regulator is expected to come out with draft norms for the CBTA for the cabin crew in a month. It will be on a voluntary basis for the airlines. She said the efforts are to improve the competencies of the cabin crew. "For example, if there is a fire in the cabin... how will they deal with it? How will they communicate? All those kind of performance indicators (will be) embedded in it (CBTA framework) which will help them to train better," Singh said. She spoke on the sidelines of a conference in the national capital on Thursday. Participating in a session at the conference, IndiGo's Senior Vice President fo