‘Aviation infrastructure a concern’
Members of a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Culture and Tourism on Tuesday expressed serious concern over shortcomings in aviation infrastructure, recent incidents where aircraft have not followed the prescribed flight path as well as manpower shortages that could have an impact on aviation safety in the country. The concern was expressed at a meeting of the committee in the capital on Tuesday afternoon.
Sources told this newspaper that in the presence of top officials of the civil aviation ministry and the DGCA, some of the MPs in the committee expressed concern over the recent incident when an Air India Express aircraft flying over west Asia dropped altitude by thousands of feet in a matter of minutes, manpower shortages in the DGCA and the Air Traffic Control (ATC) as well as lack of timely licensing of several airports in the country.
However, when contacted, civil aviation ministry officials declined to comment on the proceedings of the meeting.
It may be recalled that during a recent seminar, Airports Authority of India (AAI) chairman V.P. Agarwal had acknowledged certain “shortcomings” in the AAI infrastructure but had said the AAI was striving to rectify these.
The DGCA, which is also battling severe manpower shortages, is in the process of recruiting more personnel so that it can carry out comprehensive and more frequent inspections of operating procedures of aviation operators.
According to sources, the MPs also wanted to know whether airlines are putting more strain on cabin crew in the light of lack of adequate recruitment.
It is understood that the DGCA is checking whether there have been any violations of flight duty time limitations of cabin crew by airlines.
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