New Delhi: Aviation regulator DGCA has directed SpiceJet to refund the booking amount to the customers of cancelled flights reportedly in 30 days. As many as 93 arrival and 93 departure slots were withdrawn by the DGCA as the low-cost carrier was operating much lesser number of flights now compared to September, sources said.
The regulator would now on also carry out “heightened” surveillance of all SpiceJet flights on landing to ensure that safety is not compromised due to its financial troubles, sources said. The measures came a day after civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said troubled SpiceJet was seeming to “give us heart attacks”.
According to recent reports, the low-cost no-frills airline had suffered a loss of Rs310 crore in the second quarter of the current financial year. With over 125 pilots quitting the airline in the recent past, the aviation regulator has asked SpiceJet to ensure that the FDTL, a rule which governs maximum duty time for the cockpit crew, was not violated.
The aviation regulator has asked the low-cost airline to report compliance of its first steps by Monday, the sources said. Asked what the next steps could be, they said this would depend on the levels of compliance to the directives issued by the DGCA.
