Tag Archives: DGCA

The new Civil Aviation Policy, which got the Cabinet’s clearance today, has made many provisions to boost regional connectivity in India. The policy has proposed increasing connectivity to the country’s smaller towns and cities by offering sops and incentives to airlines to fly on these routes. According to the new policy, a 2 per cent cess in domestic and international tickets for the regional connectivity fund will be set up. Air strips will be refurbished, depending on demand, as no-frills airports. This will be done at a cost not exceeding Rs 50 crore, mostly through AAI. There will be a window system for all aviation related transactions and complaints by aviation regulator DGCA.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has reportedly told airlines that ticket cancellation fees cannot exceed base fares. Every other charge collected apart from the base fare should be refunded to the customer since airfares have components like service tax and other airport charges in them, a senior aviation ministry official said. Any booking site charges will also need to be included within the new limit. The DGCA has already held discussions with airlines on the new rules, which will be announced soon, he said. This move comes into action after air fares skyrocketed during the Chennai floods last year and the Jat agitation in Haryana in February for which the government stepped in to cap ticket prices.

SpiceJet continues to record highest passenger load factor among Indian carriers with 92.3 per cent for the month of February 2016, according to statistics released by DGCA. SpiceJet has achieved above 90 per cent passenger load factor (PLF) for 10 successive months. The airline has also bettered its On-time Performance (OTP) for the month of February 2016 with 77.7 per cent as compared to 74.7 per cent during January 2016. OTP has been computed for its operations across the four metro airports of Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. SpiceJet operated 293 daily flights and carried 9.76 lakh passengers during the month thereby registering a market share of 13.1 per cent. Shilpa Bhatia, Sr. VP, Commercial, SpiceJet, said, “This achievement is recognition of the faith and confidence our customers have reposed on us and at the same time reflects the commitment and persistent effort of entire SpiceJet staff.” Flight cancellations have also declined steadily over the past few months for the airline, with the cancellation rate for February 2016 being just 0.35 per cent.