The nation’s civil aviation area is “completely protected” and all of the protocols laid down by the Worldwide Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) are adopted, he mentioned.
Towards the backdrop of a spate of technical snags suffered by Indian airways in current weeks and DGCA curbing operations of SpiceJet, Kumar careworn that there isn’t any have to panic as not one of the occasions which have been reported/mentioned had the potential to trigger havoc.
“All of the snags skilled are routine and occur with all airways and all kinds of fleet. Within the final 16 days, even for the international operators who come to India, we’ve got seen 15 technical snags, which have been attended and rectified,” Kumar informed PTI in an interview.
Particular particulars about snags that had been confronted by the abroad carriers weren’t disclosed.
In keeping with Kumar, the snags confronted by the international operators had been just like that encountered by the Indian carriers.
In current instances, greater than a dozen situations of Indian carriers dealing with technical snags have turn into public, particularly within the case of SpiceJet, and the Directorate Normal of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is protecting a detailed watch on the developments.
“What most of them (current incidents of technical snags) required was troubleshooting, alternative of some element say windshield because of outer layer crack, faulty valve, high-pressure change, touchdown gear uplock, hydraulic accumulator or an engine,” Kumar mentioned.
The regulator has began a two-month-long particular audit of airways to handle potential points and has curtailed the operations of SpiceJet, amongst different measures, amid a spurt in situations of technical snags.
After being severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic, the home civil aviation sector is on the restoration path and on common, there are greater than 6,000 plane actions within the Indian airspace each day. If overflying planes are additionally taken into consideration, the whole could be over 7,000 actions.
Plane actions embrace landings in addition to departures.
Within the three-month interval from April 1 to June 30 this 12 months, a complete of 150 incidents occurred to the plane operated by scheduled airways because of element and system malfunction, based on the civil aviation ministry.
Through the interval from Could 2 to July 13, DGCA undertook a particular drive of 353 spot checks.
Emphasising that the aviation sector is “process-driven”, Kumar mentioned, “there are a whole lot of hundreds of elements in an plane and if one or two elements have points, it doesn’t at all times imply that there are excessive dangers or the opportunity of deadly incidents”.
He additionally famous that it will likely be naive to imagine that an plane, which flies until it’s airworthy, does 40-50 thousand hours of flying, won’t have a technical snag.
On July 27, DGCA directed SpiceJet to function solely 50 per cent of its flights for eight weeks and determined to maintain the airline underneath enhanced surveillance within the wake of a spate of technical snags suffered by the service’s planes.
The identical day, SpiceJet issued a press release saying that as a result of present lean journey season, the airline like others had already rescheduled its flight operations and that there shall be completely no influence on its flight operations.
Responding to reservations expressed in sure quarters that DGCA motion in opposition to SpiceJet was not robust sufficient, Kumar mentioned, “I’m not right here to close down airways. My function is to take measures to make sure protected and environment friendly flying”.
The DGCA chief additionally talked about that the fleet of Indian carriers is generally younger in comparison with these of many different international locations. “The main target is at all times on security and to make sure that any scenario is just not allowed to worsen”.
The protection oversight strategy of DGCA consists of surveillance, spot verify and regulatory audits embodied within the annual surveillance programme.
On July 28, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia informed the Lok Sabha {that a} whole of 478 technical snags had been reported within the final one 12 months — from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022.