Tag Archives for DGCA.
A new rule by the Indian regulator takes the middle path for the Middle-seat empty debate. Allows airlines to fill the middle-seat, but dress up the middle-seat occupiers with PPE-Lite.
You may still not take off on time, but you might just get paid for it. The DGCA and Indian Civil Aviation Ministry yesterday put out a new consultation paper on passenger rights which include a long rope for customers and a short leash for the airlines concerned. Here is how the policy may change your travel experience.
India is activating provisions to enable airlines and the government to notify a no-fly list. This means uncouth behavior in the air will not be tolerated anymore and gets you barred from flying further. Time to return to the gentleman ways of flying! Here is why!!!!!
The Indian Aviation regulator is not just terrified of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones, but also crew taking pictures on the plane.
Samsung Note 7 seems to be the next big problem for airlines to solve. The Indian regulator just applied a prohibition on using the phone inflight, and issued an advisory on how to carry it if you are on an India originating flight. Know more!
Like I’d written on this blog about 14 months back, India had received a downgrade of its safety assessment rating from the American civil aviation authority FAA, which conducts an inspection on the regulators of all the countries who operate flights to the USA. The downgrade was done on the premise that India’s regulator did not have the expertise to supervise India’s airlines, and needed to beef up their know how to be able to get back to Category 1. The impact of this downgrade, a privilege that only few other countries had, was that India’s airlines could not launch new flights to the USA, and the ones which they already had, would face additional scrutiny. Also, no American airlines…
Looking at the troubles Spicejet is undergoing at the moment, the regulator for aviation safety in India, DGCA, ordered them to stop accepting bookings beyond the 30 day period, amongst other measures they took against the airline over last weekend. First things first, here on, because Spicejet’s schedule integrity has gone for a toss, the DGCA ordered it to stop bookings for a period more than 30 days out. Initially, Spicejet did not comply with this decision, however here on, you cannot book Spicejet tickets more than 30 days out. Their website displays this notification very clearly. When I tried searching for a ticket more than 30 days out, I got nothing. However, they are still selling tickets for the…
The Directorate General for Civil Aviation, which is India’s aviation regulator, does not have a clue of what it can and what it can’t do. As a result, people in their office think that they can regulate anything that has the word aviation in it, or air, or something like that. They’ve tried intervening in fare sales, airline pricing and so on. However, from the “About DGCA” page on their website, updated in September 2013, their key function is listed below as: Directorate General of Civil Aviation is the regulatory body governing the safety aspects of civil aviation in India. I consider that sorted then, about the real purpose of DGCA is to take care of aviation safety and that…
A few weeks back I had written about the regulatory notification which modified the rules for the use of Personal Electronic Devices on airplanes while in flight and on the ground. Since then, I’ve waited for airlines to go ahead and execute the rules on the ground. I’m glad to report now it is no issue to use your electronics on board. Here is a collection of various domestic airlines and how they are implementing the rule at this moment: SpiceJet: SpiceJet was the first off the block. They claim they were the first to implement the revised rules, however they are allowing the use of PEDs/phones only above 10,000 feet even now. As per their COO, they don’t find…
For the longest time, India has had a rule, which stated that Portable Electronic Devices could not be used while planes are airborne, not even in flight-safe/airplane mode. Not that it dissuaded passengers because we thought our rules were in line with the rest of the world and hence we continued to use them anyways. Sometimes you’d run into issues with airline staff, because they wanted compliance, but it would all pan out well in the end. Until the DGCA put SpiceJet in a mess for this incident on Holi. Yesterday, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, India’s civil aviation regulator, decided to finally update the rulebook to bring it in line with the rest of the world. the last…
In a not-so-surprise move by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), after their second review of the Directorate General of Indian Aviation (DGCA) in December 2013, they have downgraded the rating to Category 2, putting India in the same league as Ghana, Barbados and Bangladesh apart from some other countries (a total of 12). The inference of this is that the DGCA does not comply with the safety standards set by International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). Here is the list of FAA ratings in Excel Worksheet format. The implications of this are that there can be surprise checks on aircrafts of Indian carriers flying to the USA, and till the rating is brought back to Category 1, Air India and Jet…
