NEW DELHI: India has banned overflying of Boeing 737 Max in its airspace from 4 pm on Wednesday, the same time by which SpiceJet was told to ground its planes. While the Directorate General of Civil Aviation ( DGCA ) had ordered grounding of this aircraft with “immediate” effect just after 11 pm on Tuesday, flight tracking sites showed SpiceJet B737 Max were still operating flights on Wednesday morning.When asked about this, DGCA chief B S Bhullar told TOI: “This is to cater to situations where aircraft are to fly back to India or go to maintenance facility for parking. All Max shut down before 4 pm on Wednesday.”A senior DGCA official said: “B737Max operations will stop from and to all Indian airports. Additionally no B737 Max aircraft will be allowed to enter or transit the Indian airspace effective 4 pm Indian time. The time line is to cater to situations where aircraft can be positioned at maintenance facilities and international flights can reach their destinations.”In a statement, SpiceJet said: "Consequent to the regulatory directive on the Boeing 737 MAX, SpiceJet has already initiated grounding of its MAX fleet. In order to cause least inconvenience to its passengers and also bring these aircraft to its maintenance base we expect to complete this exercise on or before 4 pm Wednesday. SpiceJet has presently announced cancellation of 14 flights for Wednesday and will be operating additional flights from Thursday. Of the 76 planes in our fleet, 64 aircraft are in operations and we are confident of minimizing the inconvenience to our passengers and attain normalcy in our operations.”"While a majority of passengers affected as a result of these cancellations have been accommodated by SpiceJet on alternate flights, rest have been offered a full-refund. Safety and security of our passengers, crew and operations are of utmost importance to us and we are closely working with the regulator and manufacturer to resolve the matter,” the SpiceJet statement added.On Tuesday night, DGCA had said it had decided to “to ground the Boeing 737-MAX planes immediately. These planes will be grounded till appropriate modifications and safety measures are undertaken to ensure their safe operations.” After this, SpiceJet had said that it “suspended Boeing 737 Max operations following DGCA's decision to ground the aircraft.”Despite the order of DGCA and statement by SpiceJet, flight tracking sites showed several of the airline’s B737 max operating. The Indian regulator’s order is effectively only for SpiceJet as it is the only Indian carrier with the B737 Max. Jet Airways has five B737 Max but they are on ground for a very long time, much before Sunday’s crash of Ethiopian, due to non-payment of lease rentals.In a statement, the US Federal Aviation Administration said it “continues to review extensively all available data and aggregate safety performance from operators and pilots of the Boeing 737 MAX. Thus far, our review shows no systematic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding the aircraft. Nor have other civil aviation authorities provided data to us that would warrant action. In the course of our urgent review of data on the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash, if any issues affecting the continued airworthiness of the aircraft are identified, the FAA will take immediate and appropriate action.”