New Delhi: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Wednesday ordered SpiceJet to operate a truncated schedule — half of the allowed fights — this summer. The airline has also been put under "enhanced surveillance” for 8 weeks.
The cash-strapped airline will be allowed to scale up operations only after proving that it has “sufficient, technical support and financial resource to safely and efficiently undertake such enhanced capacity.”
The aviation regulator issued an interim order on Wednesday on the showcase notice it had issued to the airline on July 5 and after receiving its comments on the same within the given three weeks.
SpiceJet anyway has been operating about 300 flights daily in past few weeks which is half of the approved weekly 4,100-odd flights. So this order may have no impact on the airline operationally, apart from planes that are being subjected to stricter checks.
"We are not cancelling a single flight due to this order," said airline sources.
All financially strained airlines have cut down on the number of flights as domestic traffic has fallen sharply after record high jet fuel prices and record low value of rupee forced fare hikes. This has led to a fall in the number of daily domestic flyers to below 3 lakh compared to pre-Covid level of about 4.2 lakh.
“In view of findings of various spot checks, inspections and the reply to the show cause notice for continued sustenance of safe and reliable air transport service, the number of departures of SpiceJet are hereby restricted to 50% of the number of departures approved under summer schedule of eight weeks from (July 27, 2022).… Any increase in the number of departures beyond 50% of the number of departures approved under summer schedule 2022, during this period, shall be subject to the airline demonstrating to the satisfaction of DGCA that it has sufficient technical support and financial resource to safely and efficiently undertake such enhanced capacity,” the order issued by DGCA joint DG Maneesh Kumar said.
27/07/22 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
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