Number of Jet flights may reduce further, says DGCA after meeting with airlines

india

Updated: Mar 19, 2019 16:45 IST

India’s aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil aviation held an emergency meeting with the management of debt-ridden Jet Airways on Tuesday evening. DGCA said the situation is “dynamic” and the number of Jet flights may reduce further in the coming weeks.

The meeting came in the wake of the airliner drastically reducing its operations due to liquidity crunch.

“DGCA reviewed the performance of Jet Airways on Operational, Airworthiness & Passenger facilitation. Current availability of aircraft in the fleet for operation is 41 and accordingly scheduled for 603 domestic flights and 382 international flights has been drawn,” a statement said.

The aviation regulator has asked Jet Airways to comply with the relevant provisions for facilitation of passengers regarding timely communication, compensation, refunds and providing alternate flights wherever applicable.

The DGCA statement said it is continuously monitoring overall situation and based on the same, will take appropriate steps by the end of the month, if needed.

Aviation minister Suresh Prabhu had directed his ministry’s secretary to hold an emergency meeting on Jet Airways massively cancelling flights after grounding of a large part of its fleet.

“Directed Secretary, @MOCA GOI to hold an emergency meeting on grounding of flights by Jet Airways, advance bookings, cancellations, refunds and safety issues, if any,” Prabhu said in a tweet.

“Asked him (civil aviation secretary) to get a report on Jet compliance issues immediately from DGCA,” he added.

On Monday, Jet Airways engineers’ body wrote to aviation regulator DGCA, seeking its intervention in the recovery of their salary dues, saying non-payment was affecting their psychological condition which, in turn, was a “risk” to the airline’s flight operations.

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