Enforcement of safety standards in India’s aviation industry is not keeping pace with the rapid growth of the sector, experts warn.
A number of pilots in India have been securing licences after barely flying because of fudged documents, while the regulator is ill-equipped to monitor safety of aircraft and personnel as airlines continue to expand and more carriers take to the skies in the country.
With the International Civil Aviation Organization expected to conduct an audit towards the end of this year, aviation safety in India is coming into sharp focus.
“In my nearly 30 years of experience in aviation in India, I always found a great emphasis on very high safety standards in the initial years,” says Satish Modh, who was in aviation for most of his career before becoming the director of the Vivekanand Education Society Institute of Management Studies and Research in Mumbai.
“But as the aviation sector expanded greatly, the system was not geared enough to handle such high growth. Nearly the same number of people were dealing with a three to fourfold increase in the number of aircraft and licensed personnel. Even if the measures were stringent there was the possibility of making mistakes and ignoring some incidents due to shortage of flight inspectors.”
There has been a surge in the growth of India’s aviation sector over the past decade, particularly with the rise of low-cost carriers. Last year, a new full-service airline, Vistara, a joint venture between Singapore Airlines and Tata Group, took to the skies. The previous year, the budget airline AirAsia India launched in the market.
01/08/15 Rebecca Bundhun/The National
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A number of pilots in India have been securing licences after barely flying because of fudged documents, while the regulator is ill-equipped to monitor safety of aircraft and personnel as airlines continue to expand and more carriers take to the skies in the country.
With the International Civil Aviation Organization expected to conduct an audit towards the end of this year, aviation safety in India is coming into sharp focus.
“In my nearly 30 years of experience in aviation in India, I always found a great emphasis on very high safety standards in the initial years,” says Satish Modh, who was in aviation for most of his career before becoming the director of the Vivekanand Education Society Institute of Management Studies and Research in Mumbai.
“But as the aviation sector expanded greatly, the system was not geared enough to handle such high growth. Nearly the same number of people were dealing with a three to fourfold increase in the number of aircraft and licensed personnel. Even if the measures were stringent there was the possibility of making mistakes and ignoring some incidents due to shortage of flight inspectors.”
There has been a surge in the growth of India’s aviation sector over the past decade, particularly with the rise of low-cost carriers. Last year, a new full-service airline, Vistara, a joint venture between Singapore Airlines and Tata Group, took to the skies. The previous year, the budget airline AirAsia India launched in the market.
01/08/15 Rebecca Bundhun/The National
