DGCA reluctant to continue objections to Air India appointments

New Delhi: The recent controversy over high-profile appointments at Air India appears set to ease.
Going by sources, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which had earlier raised safety concerns over the appointment of Air India Express COO Pawan Arora and also questioned the appointment of Stefan Sukumar as the chief of training saying he was not qualified for the job, appears to be on the backfoot now.
The DGCA did not provide time to the airline management on Saturday for a meeting to explain their side of the story.
Its sudden reluctance to continue with its objections comes even as Nasim Zaidi’s term as the director general expires at the end of this month and his next appointment, as secretary, civil aviation, is being questioned by some of his own juniors. Besides questioning the appointment of an outsider to the post of DGCA after Zaidi, these juniors are also questioning Zaidi’s objections to Arora and Sukumar, say sources.
Things now appear to be going in favour of Air India’s chairman and managing director Arvind Jadhav, who has already drawn up a detailed explanation to defend these key appointments and is expected to lay it before the board, which is slated to meet on Thursday.
08/11/10 Sindhu Bhattacharya/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Air India Nov 2010