New Delhi: Top civil aviation ministry sources on Saturday said that SpiceJet’s books are bad, “which sometimes give the impression that safety may not be getting as much of a priority as it should,” adding that the aviation regulator DGCA has just done its job.
Other Government sources too said SpiceJet's financial condition was “bad” and that the airline urgently needed at least Rs 1,000 crore from an investor for “recapitalisation”.
The DGCA had recently conducted an audit of all airlines.
Reacting to the aviation regulator’s Friday order, SpiceJet said that the direction that future bookings should be not more than one month in advance, will be a “counterproductive.” However, the airline said that it would discuss the “pros and cons” of the order in a “cooperative” way with the DGCA.
SpiceJet had earlier launched promotional fare offers by inviting passengers to buy cheap air-tickets months in advance of the travel date.
According to a travel agent there is growing panic among SpiceJet’s passengers since they are unsure whether flights on which they booked tickets well in advance would operate on that day or not.
SpiceJet had recently admitted that it was cancelling several flights. The aviation regulator’s action against the airline was taken to avoid passenger inconvenience.
Late on Friday night, SpiceJet said it provides refunds of all bookings for cancelled flights ma-de directly with the airline (credit card or cash) within an average of 10 days.
