Air India has been asked to immediately implement the guidelines of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Civil Aviation Requirement on Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) for its pilots and crew members.
The non-implementation of the guidelines saw the average utilisation of pilots in Air India being limited. This direction to Air India will lead to optimum utilisation of its pilots and cabin crew and reduce the requirements of pilots and cabin crew for a given number of aircraft.
Interestingly, on Monday, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), the pilots association of erstwhile Indian, wrote to Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh seeking a meeting to explain their viewpoint on how many hours they should fly to make better use of aircraft.
A Ministry statement said that with the implementation of guidelines, the airline will be able to spare a significant number of pilots and cabin crew for additional aircraft that Air India is going to acquire up to 2015.
The decision to ask Air India to implement the guidelines comes after an analysis of the FDTL showed that Air India was lower in five of the six parameters. It is only when it comes to “rest period” that Air India is on par with the FDTL.
The FDTL basically deals with six parameters, including maximum daily flight duty period, maximum daily flight time, weekly/monthly/annual limitation of flying hours, rest period, staff on duty travel or position and number of landings.
“Line pilot’s FDTL is a mutually agreed set of rules incorporated in Air India operational manual and does not restrict a pilot from flying,” the ICPA letter states. It adds that the CAR series allows a pilot to fly 1,000 hours in 365 days where as the ICPA FDTL, allows a pilot to fly 960 hours in 365 days.
The letter points out that a pilot can fly 6.5 hours a day under the ICPA FDTL, which is 1.5 times higher than the requirement of 4.16.