Cash-strapped, so safety gets the go-by?

New Delhi: Is the government allowing cash-strapped airlines to play with passenger lives? Fearing that such airlines may be cutting corners in the vital area of flight safety, India's aviation regulator did a financial surveillance of airlines last April and found two big airlines severely strained, including Air India. Ironically, the findings of the first survey led the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) asking the aviation ministry to get a detailed financial audit of airlines.
The regulator had also asked the ministry not to allow such airlines to induct more aircraft in the fleet till they meet all safety standards for the existing fleet. While it's been over a year that these recommendations have been gathering dust, DGCA has now issued a draft for doing regular financial surveys of airlines and linked that to fleet expansion.
The regulator is going to regularly monitor airlines' bottom lines not by just looking at balance sheets but by watching out for real stress indicators. These include if the airline has been put on cash-and-carry by oil and airport companies; whether salaries are being paid on time and also if the carrier has gone in for drastic reduction of flights and fleet.
The International ICAO has listed factors like significant lay-offs, delayed salaries, being put on cash-and-carry and curtailment of flights as some of the key stress indicators.
23/05/10 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Air India Budget May 2010, Airports May 2010, NACIL May 2010, Safety May 2010