The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked Tata Group-owned Air India to repair its aircraft after a passenger took to social media to complain about the dilapidated condition of the aircraft. PTI,
On Monday, a passenger posted some pictures on social media in which his armrest is seen broken. of Air India Airbus A320 aircraft with registration number VT-EDF.
As a result, the DGCA asked the airline to investigate and rectify the problem at the earliest, the news agency quoted officials as saying.
The aircraft will be in Kolkata on Monday night and repair work will be done there.
This comes a few days after the SpiceJet aircraft was stopped by the DGCA on a complaint of dirty seats and bad cabin panels by a passenger. A day after all the suggested repairs took effect, the SpiceJet plane took off in the skies.
After successfully winning the bid for the airline on October 8 last year, the Tata group took over control of Air India on January 27.
A DGCA circular issued on April 19 stated that the airline has lost its preferential access to bilateral rights, which are required to operate flights to another country.
For airlines from a particular country to operate international flights to the other country, both parties must negotiate and sign a “bilateral air services agreement”, which stipulates how many flights (or seats) per week. Can be allowed to fly from one country. for other.
Once such an agreement is signed, each country is free to assign bilateral rights to their respective airlines.
Even after such flight rights have been allotted to an airline, there should be slots at both the airports to commence flight operations.
A slot is a date and time at which an airline’s aircraft is allowed to depart or arrive at an airport.
The slots are allotted by a committee consisting of Ministry of Civil Aviation and DGCA officials, airport operators and airlines.
Air India had preferential access to bilateral rights, which are provided under air services agreements signed between the two countries – as it was a state-owned national carrier.
With inputs from agencies.