India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued Akasa Air (QP, Mumbai International) its third show-cause notice in a month. On December 16, the safety regulator issued its latest notice because the revision cycle of the carrier’s operations manual had exceeded six months.
As previously reported in ch-aviation, the watchdog issued a show-cause notice to Akasa Air in late November after it failed to provide corrective training to a pilot involved in a hard landing incident in March.
It now emerges that on December 9, the DGCA issued another show-cause notice after it found "poor maintenance standards" and "lapses" during an inspection at Bengaluru International airport in August.
A similar May 2024 inspection at the airline’s Gurgaon HQ uncovered training lapses, including conducting practical training without the necessary regulatory approvals. As a result, Akasa received an INR3 million rupee (USD35,000) fine.
Akasa Air currently operates twenty-three B737-8s and three B737-8-200s to 28 airports across India, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, and has 200 B737 MAX aircraft on order. The airline commenced scheduled services in August 2022.
Indian aviation regulations mandate half-yearly revisions to operations manuals to incorporate regulatory updates and address operational changes.
"Over the last few months, the DGCA has conducted a number of routine audits on the Akasa Air Flight Operations department,” an Akasa Air statement on the latest show-cause notice reads. “On one of those audits, the DGCA raised certain findings for which they issued a notice of clarification. As always, we are working closely with the DGCA to clarify this issue.”
In the wake of the latest show-cause notice, Akasa Air CEO Vinay Dube said the airline was working hard to maintain and improve its high safety standards.
"World-class safety is Akasa's top priority,” he told the Press Trust of India. “We always look at ways in which we can continue to improve ourselves. This is a continuous procedure. We look at our processes, procedures, training, structures, and reporting.”
