Airlines face DGCA action

New Delhi: The massive reduction in domestic flights in past few months is now triggering serious regulatory issues now. Some airlines have cancel
led flights — hence freeing up precious slots at choked airports like Mumbai — without informing the government. As a result, other airlines who would have been willing to introduce flights on those freed up slots have not been able to do so.
Things have reached such a state that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has started issuing notices to airlines for the failure to inform about flight withdrawals.
A senior official of a south India-based airline complained that they were willing to operate flights to Mumbai but were not able to do so as the slots were all taken on paper.
The other fallout of flight reduction is that airlines have mainly withdrawn from loss-making and unprofitable sectors that are mainly between metros and small towns. Government rules mandate that airline have to operate a fixed percentage of the flights they operate on metro routes on three sectors — metros to small towns; other places to Jammu and Kashmir, northeast and Andaman and within J&K and northeast.
03/10/08 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Oct 2008