New Delhi: Concerned about the paucity of pilots to carry out safety inspections, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has sent letters to airlines to relieve, on lien, all full-time 29 flight operations inspectors (FOIs), hired by the regulator in March.
The DGCA has written the letter at a time when only nine of the 29 hired pilots have joined them. An official in the DGCA told Business Standard: “We are supposed to start the training programme for FOIs from May 1. Nine pilots have joined. We have finalised the curriculum for the training. If four-five pilots come, we will start as scheduled.”
Hiring of full-time FOIs and their recruitment and the training are crucial for India to regain the Category-I status in safety rankings by the US regulator Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The downgrade has barred Indian airlines from expanding operations to the US and impacted code-share arrangements with American counterparts. FAA, in safety audits conducted in September and December last year, had expressed severe concerns over the lack of full-time FOIs in the DGCA and had downgraded India to Category-II of safety rankings, clubbing it with Zimbabwe and Indonesia.
01/05/14 Sharmistha Mukherjee/Business Standard
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The DGCA has written the letter at a time when only nine of the 29 hired pilots have joined them. An official in the DGCA told Business Standard: “We are supposed to start the training programme for FOIs from May 1. Nine pilots have joined. We have finalised the curriculum for the training. If four-five pilots come, we will start as scheduled.”
Hiring of full-time FOIs and their recruitment and the training are crucial for India to regain the Category-I status in safety rankings by the US regulator Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The downgrade has barred Indian airlines from expanding operations to the US and impacted code-share arrangements with American counterparts. FAA, in safety audits conducted in September and December last year, had expressed severe concerns over the lack of full-time FOIs in the DGCA and had downgraded India to Category-II of safety rankings, clubbing it with Zimbabwe and Indonesia.
01/05/14 Sharmistha Mukherjee/Business Standard
