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SpiceJet delayed spare parts replacement: DGCA

Aviation regulator has begun checks to assess whether the carrier was compromising with the safety of flyers or its quality of service due to financial troubles

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Worried over budget airline SpiceJet’s slippages on financial front, the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has begun its checks to assess whether the carrier was compromising with the safety of flyers or its quality of service.

A senior DGCA executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the financial strain has started to show “stress” on the airline, which has been found to have delayed its spare parts replacement at many instances.
“It appears that the airline is stressed due to its financial problems. There have been many instances of delay in replacement of spare parts. This has been brought to our notice. Such delays can lead to safety issues,” said the official.

The aviation regulator is also looking into whether employees are being paid salary on time and what are its dues to various creditors. The airline is expected to shortly submit these information to the regulator.
It has jumped into action to prevent the situation from disintegrating into what happened with Kingfisher Airlines, where employees and creditors were left in a lurch due to no timely intervention taken by the concerned authorities.

The DGCA is also closely monitoring the no-frills airline’s scheduling, cancellation rate and other such details.

Sanjiv Kapoor, chief operating officer, SpiceJet, denied that the regulator was carrying checks on the beleaguered airline.

"(It is) absolutely untrue. Someone is planting garbage story," he said.

As per data released by the aviation regulator, SpiceJet’s cancellation rate in October at 0.64% was below the industry rate of 1.36%. IndiGo, which owns more than double the number of SpiceJet's aircraft, had the highest cancellation rate of 2.35% last month.

Even the airline’s number of passengers affected by cancellations had not yet slipped to alarming levels. The data put out by DGCA shows that 1,530 flyers were affected in October by cancellations by SpiceJet, which was below Air India’s (domestic) 3,734 and Jet’s 2,324. Air Costa, which operates much less aircraft than SpiceJet, had a higher number of passengers affected by cancellations at 2,148. IndiGo performed best on this count with no passengers affected by cancellations.

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