New Delhi: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) extended the deadline for the full implementation of revised pilot rest rules by five months to March 31, 2027, as airlines grapple with rising operating costs and concerns over the impact of the guidelines on crew availability, people aware of the matter said.
The latest extension granted earlier this week was the third. The previous relaxation followed IndiGo's operational crisis last December, when India's largest airline cancelled thousands of flights amid a crew shortage.
The revised Flight Duty Time Limitations rules, notified early last year, revised the definition of night duty to extend the period covered by an hour, from midnight to 6 am instead of midnight to 5 am. They also capped the number of landings a pilot can undertake during this period at two and limited duty to 10 hours.
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In December, the DGCA allowed airlines to operate with three landings when a pilot's duty fell between midnight and 1:55 am or between 5 am and 6 am. Airlines were required to provide rest equivalent to twice the duty period for such operations. The relaxations, due to expire on October 31, will now continue until March 31.
Associations of pilots have opposed such repeated extensions, arguing that they undermine the objective of the revised safety regulations.
"Airlines had raised concerns about implementing these rules when the cost structure is already high due to high fuel costs. They have slowed down hiring of pilots. As a regulator, the DGCA has to take into consideration safety and viable operations," a government official said, adding that no further exemptions would be granted after March 31.
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The Federation of Indian Airlines, whose members include IndiGo, Air India and SpiceJet, said that the revised rules could increase their pilot requirements by 25%. Airlines also cited high aviation turbine fuel prices, airspace restrictions, additional crew expenses and rupee depreciation as pressures on their finances. The Federation of Indian Pilots, meanwhile, urged the government to withdraw the relaxations, saying that the regulator was normalising exceptional arrangements rather than forcing airlines to comply with laws. "The five-month extension risked prolonging arrangements intended to address temporary operational difficulties, and gives an impression that mandatory safety requirements may be deferred whenever operational pressures arise," it said in a letter to civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu that ET has seen.