LONDON – According to The Business Standard in India, the chaos continues for low-cost airline SpiceJet has removed its daily Sikkim flights from its network due to operational struggles.
The carrier said the following on the constraints:
“SpiceJet flights to and from Pakyong airport have been temporarily suspended with effect from October 30, 2022, due to operational constraints owing to the bad weather condition and low visibility at Pakyong.
“Pakyong is a VFR (Visual Flight Rules) airport and does not have instrument landing facilities. To avoid inconvenience to our passengers, flight operations have been temporarily suspended. We will share an update once the services resume”.
According to the report from The Business Standard, the monsoon season in that area has caused the airline to produce some losses on that particular route.
A Summer of Reductions?
For SpiceJet, it does appear to be the case that the airline has had a woeful summer, especially when it comes to its capacity offerings.
Back in July, the DGCA in India ordered SpiceJet to operate only 50% of its scheduled flights for the next 8 weeks.
This is one of the most stringent actions taken by DGCA on airlines in India recently.
DGCA had to pass such orders because, in recent times, SpiceJet has been involved in an unusually high number of incidents. Though this was shocking as this comes just a day after SpiceJet sent out a tweet
“India’s most-preferred airline is as safe and reliable as it has been for the last 17 years. Aviation regulator DGCA audited our entire operational fleet, and every plane has been given the green signal to fly, and there has been no safety violation,” SpiceJet tweeted this week.
SpiceJet had 8 incidents in the span of 18 days; these incidents involved windshield crack, smoke in the cabin, and malfunctioning indicator light, among other issues.
Though after DGCA announced operational restrictions for the airline SpiceJet assured its travel partners and its customers that this would not affect its flight operations as due to the “Lean Travel” season airline had already altered its schedule.
“In view of findings of various spot checks, inspections, and the reply to the show cause notice submitted by SpiceJet, for the continued sustenance of safe and reliable air transport service, the number of departures of SpiceJet is restricted to 50% of the number of departures approved… for a period of eight weeks.
During these eight weeks, the airline would be subjected to “enhanced surveillance”. Any increase in the number of departures beyond 50 percent” would be subject to the airline, “demonstrating to the satisfaction of DGCA that it has sufficient technical support and financial resource to safely and efficiently undertake such enhanced capacity, reads DGCA’S statement.
Either way, it does remain clear that SpiceJet is in quite the rut at the moment, with no end in sight when it comes to the ongoing operational issues they are having.
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