Airlines

"The spot checks raised findings which were corrected by the airlines. Another series of spot checks were carried out on all operating aircraft of Spicejet from July 9 to 13, wherein 53 spot checks were carried out on 48 aircraft which did not raise any significant finding or safety violations," said the Ministry of civil Aviation in a written reply in the House.

"SpiceJet flight operations remain absolutely normal. All our flights have departed on time, as per schedule today, and there have been no cancellations. We are operating with excellent loads and the daily ticket bookings remain strong. Our load factor on July 30th and 31st was 81% andA 82.4% respectively," said the airline spokesperson.

On time performance of Go First was 94.5 % during January 2022 which came down to 71.8 % in May and 76 % in June. Similarly, On time performance of Spicejet was 87.5 % in January and it reduced to 70.9 % in May and 79.4 % in June. Other airlines including Indigo, Alliance Air, Air Asia and a few others recorded similar trends during the last few months.

Paving the way for the private carrier's revival, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) granted the revalidated Air Operator Certificate to the new owners, Jalan Kalrock Consortium (JKC), on May 20. The JKC fulfilled all the conditions laid down in the NCLT-approved resolution plan for the revival of the airline, founded in April 1992 and launched in 1993 by businessman Naresh Goyal, and shut after 27 years in April 2019.

The ministry of civil aviation on Monday said in the Rajya Sabha that the upgradation or modernisation of airports, including provision of night landing facility is a continuous process and is undertaken by Airports Authority of India (AAI) and other airport operators from time to time depending on the availability of land, commercial viability, socio- economic considerations, traffic demand and willingness of airlines to operate to/from such airports etc.

"Aircraft were lying idle during the Covid period of nearly two years. Many airlines resorted to cost cutting and retrenchment was part of it. Now, after a sudden surge in demand, a large number of aircraft have been deployed whereas many airlines have not recruited enough manpower to handle the pressure. New staff are there at many places, but they need to be synchronised with the system and require reorientation," he said.

Incidentally, Go First reported a few incidents of engineering malfunctioning in recent times. The aviation regulator recently ordered grounding of its planes after two of its aircraft witnessed technical glitches leading to their diversion on July 19. With a fleet size of 57 aircraft, Go First recorded 78.7 per cent occupancy in June. The airline reported a market share of 9.5 per cent during the same month.

The airline said that it will deploy a Boeing 737 Max plane on the route for commercial operation. Flight operations will be conducted on two Boeing 737 Max aircraft. Boeing has already delivered one aircraft and the second one will be delivered later this month. Akasa Air, in a statement issued on Friday, said it has begun sale of tickets on 28 flights that will operate weekly on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route from August 7.

Many Airlines currently charge a fee of Rs 200 if a passenger wants the boarding pass to be issued at the check-in counter instead of going for web check-in. "It has come to the notice of the MoCA (Ministry of Civil Aviation) that airlines are charging additional amount from the passengers for issuing boarding passes," the ministry said.

GoAir A320 aircraft VT-WGA flight G8-386 from Mumbai to Leh was diverted to Delhi, and GoAir A320 aircraft VT-WJG flight G8-6202 from Srinagar to Delhi was turned back to Srinagar due to EGT over-limit in the engine. The first plane was diverted to Delhi due to an EIU (Engine Interface Unit) fault in engine number 2.