The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has directed SpiceJet to operate just 50% of approved flights for 8 weeks following multiple snags reported by the airline.
The aviation regulator’s directive comes after SpiceJet responded to a show cause notice to the airline earlier this month.
DGCA said it reviewed the incidents on SpiceJet aircraft between April 1 and July 5 and found out that on a number of occasions, the aircraft either turned back to its originating station or continued landing to the destination with degraded safety margins.
There is poor internal safety oversight and inadequate maintenance actions which have resulted in degradation of safety margins, the DGCA order added.
The DGCA also pointed out that the airline has been in financial doldrums, as a review carried out in September 2021 revealed that SpiceJet had been missing payments to vendors and operated on cash & carry mode.
SpiceJet in a statement said the DGCA order will have absolutely no impact on its services.
“Due to the current lean travel season, SpiceJet like other airlines had already rescheduled its flight operations. Hence, there will be absolutely no impact on our flight operations. We want to reassure our passengers and travel partners that our flights will operate as per schedule in the coming days and weeks. There will be no flight cancellation as a consequence of this order,” a SpiceJet spokesperson said.
MoS Civil Aviation V K Singh on Monday said that the regulator carried out 53 spot checks on 48 SpiceJet aircraft between July 9 and July 13 after issuing the show-cause notice to budget airline in connection with eight malfunction incidents in the last 18 days.
“However, as a safety measure, the DGCA ordered SpiceJet to use certain identified aircraft (10) for operations only after confirming to the regulator that all reported defects/malfunctions are rectified,” reported PTI citing Singh.
