Flights Delayed More Than Three Hours Will Be Considered Cancelled
Following the recent controversy over hours-long delays and abrupt cancellations, Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has said that airlines have been instructed to treat a flight as cancelled if they expect it to be delayed beyond three hours.
"One of the things that we have done in those SOPs is that we have instructed airlines that if you are looking at your flight being delayed beyond three hours, you must treat that flight as cancelled," Scindia said, adding that "six-hour delays and eight-hour delays should now become a thing of the past. Because it is being monitored."
DGCA to monitor flight cancellation SOPs?
He also said the SOPs of informing passengers about cancellations, delays of flights and others are being monitored twice-thrice daily by the DGCA.
Scindia was responding to the recent controversy involving an IndiGo flight from Goa to Delhi which was delayed by several hours, that led to a sit-in protest at the Mumbai airport tarmac by passengers.
Scindia called the incident "unacceptable and shameful", and said that penalties were imposed.
Fine on IndiGo, Mumbai airport for tarmac incident
Aviation regulators BCAS and DGCA on Wednesday slapped penalties totalling Rs 2.70 crore on IndiGo, Mumbai airport operator MIAL, Air India and SpiceJet for various violations.
Days after a video of IndiGo passengers having food on the Mumbai airport tarmac was widely shared, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) slapped fines of Rs 1.20 crore on the airline and Rs 60 lakh on MIAL.
The DGCA imposed a penalty of Rs 30 lakh on the airport operator, according to separate orders.
Flight operations to normalise soon: IndiGo CEO
Commenting on the recent flight disruptions, IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers on Thursday said that by the weekend and in due course of next week, he expects the entire operation to come back to normal.
?"If you see, I am sure all of you have seen that we had probably the worst fog in many years. Many of our stations in northern India were severely impacted by the fog situation. If northern India is under a blanket of deep fog, we are having a challenge," Elbers said.
"I would expect that the cancellation (of flights) setting is completely back to normal, provided no more fog. But we can patrol a lot of things in life, but that, we can't. But it should be completely back to normal, I would say, by the weekend and in due course of next week, I do expect that our entire operation should be back to normal," the IndiGo CEO added.
For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit?Indiatimes News.
