Kingfisher withdraws flight dispatch offices

Chennai: Kingfisher Airlines has withdrawn all its Flight Dispatchers from various bases, including Chennai, and centralised its flight dispatch operations in Mumbai.
Since January 19, all its qualified flight dispatchers working in various parts of the country were transferred to Mumbai, leaving their job to an ‘Operations Officer’, who is merely an assistant who prints and hands over documents coming from Mumbai, to a pilot before flying.
“Over the phone the flight dispatchers were warned of being sacked if they didn’t want to move to Mumbai,” a Kingfisher source in Mumbai said.
Out of Chennai, Kingfisher operates around 30 flights daily and has night parking facility for six aircraft. According to the Civil Aviation Regulation (CAR), airlines should have appropriate flight dispatchers in all regions where they operate from and have night halts.
“It is only a dispatcher who can determine the health of an aircraft and help the pilot fly safely with adequate documents. However, at present all our briefing packages come from Mumbai. The ‘operations officers’ merely print and hand the papers over to the pilots. If a MET folder has lapsed owing to delay or any other discrepancy, these officers update it locally, which is illegal as they are not certified to do so. According to DGCA norms, the operations officer is not a qualified flight dispatcher,” a Kingfisher source said here.
Civil Aviation director general Dr Nazim Zaidi said he was not aware of Kingfisher’s centralised dispatch operations.
12/04/10 Mamta Todi/ExpressBuzz

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Categories: Kingfisher Apr 2010