The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has fined Air India a penalty of Rs 90 lakh for operating flights with “non-qualified” crew members. The aviation watchdog also penalised the Director Operations and Director Training of Air India Rs 6 lakh and Rs 3 lakh respectively, amounting to a total of Rs 99 lakh fine.
The regulator stated that the incident came to its notice through a voluntary report submitted by the airline on July 10 on an investigation it carried out to find several deficiencies and multiple violations to the regulatory provisions by several post holders and staff.
DGCA stated: "The concerned pilot has been warned to exercise caution to prevent such occurrences in future. M/s Air India Limited operated a flight commanded by a non-trainer line captain paired with a non-line-released first officer which has been viewed by the regulator as a serious scheduling incident having significant safety ramifications.”
“The concerned commander of the flight and DGCA approved postholders of M/s Air India Limited were provided an opportunity to explain their position vide show cause notices (SCNs) dated 22.07.2024. The reply submitted by the concerned failed to provide satisfactory justification. As such, DGCA has initiated enforcement action in terms of provisions of the extant rules/regulations and imposed the above penalty,” it said.
Meanwhile, the airline was fined in March for violating pilot rest period rules of DGCA. The airline was penalised with Rs 80 lakh. The watchdog in its audit to check if the airline was complying to regulations on Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) in January had found the violations.