CLOSURE OF AIRSPACE LEADS TO CANCELLATIONS

MUMBAI: Closure of the Afghanistan airspace on Monday led to flight cancellations and diversions. While flights to Kabul were cancelled, two Air India flights that use the Afghanistan air space had to be re-routed and were ‘forced to divert because of fuel considerations’ and halted in the UAE.

The pilots of the national carrier Air India, in order to fly Indians back without much hassle, stepped up and chose to work beyond their flight duty time limit (FDTL). Around 600 passengers on two Delhi bound flights from the US could therefore reach India.

According to the civil aviation requirements laid down by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the FDTL allows a pilot to do only one landing in a long-haul flight. However, looking at the emergency, Air India pilots flying AI 126(Chicagodelhi) and AI 174 (San Francisco to Delhi) decided to extend it. Explaining FDTL, an EX-DGCA official said, “The regulator leaves it to the operating pilots to take a call. It is only on a voluntary basis that the pilots operate beyond their time limit. No one can force them to compromise their FDTL.” Sources from DGCA said the flight from Chicago was informed about Afghanistan airspace being closed late.

“The flight from San Francisco that landed Sharjah at around 3pm was given the information on time,” the official said. “The Chicago flight took off for Delhi only after three hours and the other flight from the US was in Sharjah for over an hour,” he added.