IndiGo airlines on Monday denied having flouted any safety norms by not reporting incidents of flight duty times of its personnel or instances of snags, which were mentioned in a report by the DGCA.
“IndiGo is a very quality conscious airline and passenger safety is paramount to our company’s mission and values,” IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh said in a statement. He was responding to reports that said the aviation regulator had rapped the budget carrier for flouting various safety norms by not reporting FDTL for pilots and cabin crews. The audit found that 35 incidents of FDTL were not reported coupled with many instances of snags.
IndiGo said the FDTL incidents occurred due to reasons such as weather, traffic congestion and flight diversions. “These 35 FDTL issues occurred over 74,500 flights operated by IndiGo from January to October 2011. We would like to reiterate that these FDTL’s occur due to unavoidable circumstances such as weather, traffic congestion and flight diversions.”
DGCA also criticised IndiGo for instructing its pilots not to report small incidents and that the airline faced a severe shortage of training examiners for pilots. IndiGo said it had hired more pilots and training examiners than the normal hiring ratios.
“We have consciously over-hired pilots, especially highly trained and experienced pilots and training captains, far more than the normal hiring ratios.”
Meanwhile, Kingfisher Airlines is believed to have submitted a detailed response to the safety queries raised by the DGCA on Monday. According to sources, the airline has provided a time-bound plan to resolve the lapses, get its grounded fleet back in the air and pay salary arrears.
Sources said the airline has presented a plan wherein its grounded fleet of aircraft (at present 20 out of the 64 aircraft it operates are grounded) will be back in the air latest by October this year. Also, the airline has promised to pay November salary arrears to all employees by the 15the of this month and those for December by January 31.
