The oft-repeated statements by the Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Jyotiraditya Scindia, and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), that, first, ‘safety is paramount’ and, second, ‘India has one of the fastest growing aviation sectors’, are ones that are at complete variance with each other when there are two very serious safety issues staring at aviation in India.
In June 2023, the Minister had written to the Kerala government implying that the safety of passengers was being gravely compromised due to the non-provision of the Runway End Safety Area at Kozhikode’s Karipur airport. The provision of this safety feature was explicitly recommended by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) after its investigation and recommendations following an air crash at the airport on August 7, 2020. The Minister said that the Ministry would be “left with no choice but to proceed with the necessary action of curtailing the runway length for safe aircraft operations at Calicut airport from 01.08.2023 unless the land is handed over to the AAI [Airports Authority of India] immediately”.
We are now in April 2024 and just a couple of weeks and months away from the southwest monsoon, and, later, the northeast monsoon. Yet, no land has been made available and flights continue at the airport without restrictions.
In January 2024, Mr. Scindia, in a post on X, had said: “... After in-depth analysis of pilot rosters, fatigue-related reports and direct feedback from pilots, we have introduced revised “FDTL Regulations” [Flight Duty Time Limitations] that include, increased rest periods, redefining night duty, and regular fatigue reports to be shared by airlines.” The deadline for their implementation was June 1, 2024. But airline owners in India went rushing to the Ministry and the DGCA stating that they would need additional crew to meet these requirements and hence flights would need to be curtailed. In March 2024, the DGCA deferred the “deadline” of June 1 indefinitely.
All this raises the question. Is safety paramount for the Minister and the DGCA? Or are the commercial requirements of airlines taking priority over passenger safety? Going by the actions so far, air passengers should be aware that they are flying ‘purely on a horoscope’. The authorities and the airlines are clueless on safety standards.
Systems overseas
Why has the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) introduced the Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) as a mandatory requirement? It is with good reason. The study of various accidents and serious incidents due to fatigue, has shown sleep deprivation and impaired reaction times to be identified as a major cause. Countries such as Japan, Singapore and the United Kingdom lay a lot of stress on fatigue management and also rest periods for flight crew. They follow a system where pilots get two days off every week to reset their body clock and recover from cumulative fatigue. For long haul flights, they are provided augmented rest on return to their home base.
The common refrain one hears is that pilots are overpaid for the work they do, when even senior executives in airlines earn less! In 1985 when I was part of the Central Executive of the Indian Commercial Pilots Association, this was the argument put forth by the Director of Personnel and Director Finance of the airline, that is Indian Airlines (IA), to deny pilots an increase in emoluments. I highlighted the huge difference between the working conditions of pilots and ground personnel. Pilots got just 30 days of annual leave and a day off every week due to FDTL limits. Contrast this with ground personnel who got weekends off, which is 104 days, all public holidays and their annual leave. I told the IA management that pilots would forego the increase and would also work the same number of days that ground personnel did in office.
People fail to understand that a pilot is a human being and not a machine. He or she needs time with their family too. Two days off in a week is a must to be with family.
The human factor is distant
Airline rosters never take the human factor in account. The limits laid down by the DGCA do not mean that a good airline system cannot utilise pilots to a lesser number of flight time and duty hours. When airlines place orders for aircraft, airline owners go by the DGCA Civil Aviation Requirements (C.A.R.) for scheduled transport which lays down the minimum crew requirement. If it is compared with the FDTL C.A.R., the requirement of crew would be more than double, depending on the type of operations. So, does the DGCA monitor crew numbers based on the requirements in the FDTL C.A.R.? The answer is no. After all, it would affect the news headline grabbing effect of a large aircraft order and downplay the hype around the country being the “fastest growing” in aviation.
Financial stress can have a very adverse result on a pilot. The United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report on a Silkair crash on December 19, 1997, which claimed 104 lives, identified the issue of the captain’s gambling debts and pilot suicide. In the Egyptair crash on October 31, 1999, too, there were similar findings.
I refer to the two accidents as in addition to pilot fatigue, the authorities in India do not pay heed to the dangers of financial stress. It is shocking to have reports that the copilots of Vistara, the only flourishing airline under the Tatas were given an ultimatum to ‘sign their new pay structure contract by the end of the day or else lose their command position’ when Vistara is eventually merged with Air India. It would have meant a drop in income by almost 50% for a young pilot who has invested over a crore of rupees to obtain his licence to fly and who is up to the neck paying equated monthly instalments towards the loan. Does Vistara’s management consider it safe to subject a young mind to such thoughtless pressure? Will the flight be safe when the pilot’s mind is worrying about his loan? The Tatas are known to care for the welfare of their employees. It is surprising, therefore, that when it is an issue that concerns pilots, the issue takes a back seat.
Why are airlines looking at copilots as only an occupant on the flight deck? They are the airline’s future captains and are a long-term investment in an airline’s growth. The human resource departments of airlines have failed. Airlines are bound to lose even their captains who will move to an airline that operates with human values. Airline owners may call this ‘illegal poaching’ but in a country where lawmakers switch sides for handouts, blaming pilots is unfair. After all, these airline-friendly rules and recommendations made by DGCA cannot be the result of a mere “over the table” approach. The electoral bond issue is a tale that has exposed many, and aviation is not an exception to this.
Some solutions
To meet pilot shortage, there is an immediate solution. India should adopt the ICAO Annex 1 Standard which allows a member state to recognise another ICAO licence and issue an Indian licence on the basis of only an Air Law examination and a Class I medical. There will be hundreds of qualified and experienced Indian captains working abroad who will return to India if the hurdles that the corrupt system uses to prevent them from returning are demolished.
The DGCA, in collusion with airline management pilots, has a rule that makes it mandatory for an instructor or an examiner to be an active pilot. However, they will accept a retired pilot working in a training centre abroad to carry out the mandatory checks on Indian pilots. Retired pilots can be utilised for simulator training. Such a step will also release a large number of trained pilots for active flying
Hanging on to rules that were drafted in 1937 and a system that has large-scale corruption will never result in Indian aviation shining. As for the Tatas, if they want to make their merger of four airlines result in a trouble-free world class airline system, they need to introspect deeply over the importance of the human factor in aviation. Finding excuses such as ‘Air Traffic Control delays’ for large-scale flight disruption — as Vistara cited — will cut no ice. It is transparency and building brand loyalty that will help them regain their past glory in aviation.
Captain A. (Mohan) Ranganathan is a former airline instructor pilot and aviation safety adviser. He is also a former member of the Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council (CASAC), India
