DGCA asks airlines to enhance availability of flights to curb rising airfares

10 Apr 2019 Evaluate

In a bid to curb rising airfares, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked each of the airlines to bring individual medium-term plan on enhancing overall availability of domestic flights. DGCA has been meeting with the airlines continuously so that they augment their additional capacity, which would be over and above the flights approved for the summer schedule.

Airfares have been on an upswing across India over the span of the last few weeks due to sharp decline in number of flights primarily caused by grounding of three-fourths of cash-strapped Jet Airways' 119-aircraft fleet. The availability of flights was also hit by pulling out of Spice Jet's 12 '737 Max' aircraft in March following safety concerns in the wake of crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jet on March 10.

The DGCA had approved a nearly seven-month-long summer schedule beginning March 31 for SpiceJet, Vistara, IndiGo, Air India and GoAir. However, for Jet Airways, it approved the summer schedule for nearly a month only due to its financial crisis. The DGCA approves winter as well as summer schedules every year in order to ensure smooth flights operations. 

© 2026 The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. MoneyWorks4Me ® is a registered trademark of The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd.

×