Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) regulations have been violated by Jet Airways through questionable means. The FDTL regulations are contained in CAR Section 7 of DGCA which expressly prohibits pilots engaged in passenger aircraft operations from operating a flight on two consecutive nights. A reply by DGCA to Kalchakra’s RTI query indicates that Jet Airways has cleverly bypassed this key regulation by getting an illegal ‘FDTL Scheme’ approved by obviously corrupt means.

To make it look normal, the same approval has been granted to Air India as well, but not to any other operator. There is also no evidence that any risk assessment was undertaken before granting this approval, which amounts to putting passengers life in danger due to tired and fatigued pilots operating their flights for the sake of increasing airline’s profits. The FDTL rules were made based on a scientific study and report submitted by Nasim Zaidi Committee in 2012, and by violating this critical pilot rest provision, Jet Airways and corrupt DGCA officials have put innocent public’s lives in danger. This approval needs to be cancelled immediately and the guilty officials brought to book.

Similarly breaching of DGCA regulations by senior Jet Airways officials through fudging crew duty time records and Computerized Rostering System is yet another example of Jet Airways corrupt practices. In a recent case it was found that a senior executive pilot of Jet Airways was openly flouting FDTL regulations and operating flights in a fatigued state. Copies of his computerized roster shows that this company has removed all automatic safeguards from their Computerized Rostering System, and is involved in a large scale manipulation of records to hoodwink any subsequent audit.