"Already many of the pilots of a private airline have completed their 1000 hours flying limit. They are not supposed to fly after 1000 hours as they are already stressed out. But we hear strong rumours that the DGCA is planning to relax it to 1200 hours. This can only create problems," D Sudhakar Reddy APAI President said.
He said while the aviation industry was growing tremendously, there were numerous reports of safety violations coming up. But the Civil Aviation ministry and the DGCA had not responded to these complaints, he charged.
"In the name of pilot shortage, the ministry is permitting many foreign pilots and even co-pilots, but nobody really knew about how many hours these pilots have logged."
On passenger complaints, Reddy said recently the Chennai-Hyderabad Go Air flight was delayed by two hours in its departure and the reason that was given was that the aircraft did not have the license/certificate to fly. "Besides, a foreign pilot operating the flight used bad language to communicate with the passengers."
APAI immediately took it up and Go Air managing director Jeh Wadia sent a letter apologising for the incident. He also promised action against the pilot, Reddy said.
