New Delhi: SpiceJet It has been going through a period of extreme turmoil in recent times due to several glitches and non-compliance of mandatory guidelines regarding training of some pilots.
The airline’s share price has fallen by about 42-43 percent so far in 2022. On Wednesday, it closed at Rs 39 against Rs 68 in early 2022.
The following is a sequence of events that attracted negative pressure for the airline.
It all started in April 2022, when aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) barred 90 pilots of the airline from operating Boeing 737 MAX aircraft because they were not properly trained.
Those pilots were trained on a faulty simulator, and the aviation regulator asked the airline to retrain the pilots, in addition to a fine of Rs 10 lakh.
In early May, 11 passengers aboard a flight from Mumbai to Durgapur in West Bengal were injured in severe disturbance and were hospitalised. Two of them have been kept in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The airline had then said that the seat belt sign was on when the plane encountered turbulence and made several announcements for the same.
Following the incident, the DGCA immediately ordered an inquiry and constituted a team to conduct the inquiry and submit a report at the earliest. A preliminary report by regulator DGCA said the pilots were in “autopilot mode” when the aircraft encountered turbulence.
In the later part of May, the SpiceJet system faced an attempted ransomware attack that affected and slowed down morning flight departures, while many passengers complained about poor services.
On 28 May, the pilots of a SpiceJet flight from Mumbai to Gorakhpur decided to fly back to Mumbai after they noticed a windshield crack in the air.
The incident that grabbed everyone’s attention was when a Delhi-bound SpiceJet plane made an emergency landing at Patna airport on June 19 following reports of a technical snag in the aircraft.
The same day a Jabalpur-bound SpiceJet flight landed back at Delhi airport after it failed to regain the cabin pressure differential even after achieving an altitude of 6,000 feet.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
A Jabalpur-bound SpiceJet flight again returned to Delhi airport on July 2 after passengers detected smoke in the plane.
On Tuesday, July 5, a SpiceJet flight from Delhi to Dubai carrying more than 150 passengers was diverted to Karachi in Pakistan due to faulty fuel indicator.
Taking note of several incidents revolving around the airline, DGCA has issued a show cause notice to SpiceJet on its failure to establish safe, efficient and reliable air services.
“The incidents reported on aircraft operated by SpiceJet Ltd from April 1, 2022 till date have been reviewed and it has been observed that on several occasions, the aircraft either returned to its origin station or continued to land at the destination. Decline in safety margin,” reads DGCA’s show-cause notice.
Union Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday expressed his concern over the recent incidents related to SpiceJet and said, “Passenger safety is paramount. Even the smallest error that hinders security will be thoroughly investigated and The course will be corrected.”
Facing a show-cause notice, SpiceJet’s chairman and managing director Ajay Singh said that they have been “running a safe airline for the last 15 years” and “exposing one or two incidents in the media does not mean that any Even the airline is unsafe”.
Singh pointed out that the kind of incidents being talked about are “trivial and happen on a daily basis in airlines”. He said, on an average 30 such incidents happen every day in airlines.
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