DGCA notice to 2 airlines for not rostering pilots with Cat-III training

Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Thursday issued notices to low-cost carrier SpiceJet and Air India for putting on duty pilots who are not trained to land in low visibility conditions at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport during periods of heavy fog. The notice came after heavy fog last week led to diversions of several flights bound for the Capital.

“The airlines have been given 15 days’ time to respond to the show cause notices,” a DGCA official said, asking not to be named. It was not immediately clear whether any other airline has been served a notice by the regulator for fog-diversions.

HT reached out to SpiceJet and Air India, but officials from both airlines refused to comment on their respective notice.

CAT III or category III is an instrument landing system, enabling aircraft to land in low visibility conditions, where the visibility is as little as 50m.

Pilots have to be CAT III compliant to be able to land during dense fog. DGCA defines the period between December 10 and February 10 as the “fog period”, and the window for CAT III operations is between 9pm and 10am.

The regulator issued the notices to the two airlines after IGI data revealed that 86% of the flight diversions between December 25 and December 28 — 50 of the 58 flights — occurred due to the unavailability of trained pilots.

IndiGo had the most number of flights diverted from IGI at 13, followed by SpiceJet and Air India with 10 flights each. Five Vistara, three Akasa and two Alliance Air flights were also diverted due to the non-availability of pilots who are trained to land in bad weather conditions.

In addition, VietJet, Malindo Air, Fly Dubai, Air Asia, and Ethiopian Airlines also had one diversion each as the pilots operating their flights were not trained to land in poor visibility, the data revealed.