The story so far: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Wednesday served a show-cause notice on SpiceJet following at least eight mid-air incidents and an accident since May. In its notice, the aviation safety regulator has blamed these occurrences on "poor internal safety oversight" as well as the airline's failure to maintain its planes due to its weak financial health. The airline has three weeks to respond.
What has the DGCA said in its show cause notice?
In its notice the DGCA has said that the airline has failed to establish "safe, efficient and reliable air services". It says that its review of incidents reported by SpiceJet since April showed that on several occasions the airline was forced to either cut short its journey and turn back its aircraft and land at the airport of origin, or continue to its destination with "degraded safety margins". It has blamed "poor internal safety oversight" and "inadequate maintenance actions" for the fall in safety standards. In its harshest observation, the regulator has said that a financial assessment undertaken by it in September 2021 revealed that the airline witnessed shortage in supply of spare parts because of its failure to pay vendors on time, most of whom were conducting business with the airline on "cash and carry" basis. Cash and carry requires upfront payments as suppliers don't want to extend credit because of the airline's failure to clear dues on time.
