SpiceJet dismisses safety fears
INDIA’S SpiceJet said on Monday (1) its flight operations remained normal and on schedule, days after the aviation regulator ordered the low-cost airline to slash its approved fleet to 50 per cent this summer for eight weeks citing safety snags.
The Director General of Civil Aviation said last Wednesday (27) that any increase in number of departures beyond 50 per cent would require the airline to show it has sufficient technical support and financial resources to safely upgrade its capacity.
The airline has been under the spotlight lately after a slew of incidents on its flights and
one of its Dubaibased
lessors asked the regulator to deregister three of SpiceJet’s planes.
“We are confident of scaling up our operations and addressing any concern that the regulator may have on priority,” the airline said on Monday.
Load factor, a measure of how much of an airline’s passenger carrying capacity has been used, was over 80 per cent last Saturday (30) and Sunday (31), the airline said in a statement.
SpiceJet reported two separate air safety incidents earlier in July, with one Dubai-bound plane making an emergency landing in Pakistan due to an issue with the cockpit light.
Another aircraft was forced to make a priority landing in Mumbai on the same day after its windshield cracked.
A week earlier, another SpiceJet plane made an emergency landing in New Delhi after its cabin filled with smoke soon after take-off. Other incidents include a “ransomware attack” that forced delays and cancellations of flights, and a flight striking turbulence that injured 17 people, with three requiring hospital treatment.
SpiceJet, which holds nearly 10 per cent of India’s domestic market, operates a fleet of about 80 narrow-body aircraft, more than half of which are Boeing 737 variants.