Mumbai: Kerala Chief Minister Ooomen Chandy, who was on his way to Delhi from Thiruananthapuram on an IndiGo flight on Thursday evening, was forced to take an Air India flight from Kochi as the private airline did not have the permission to land at the Delhi airport.
The development came after the government earlier in the day took off six landing slots of three private carriers -- Jet Airways, IndiGo and GoAir -- for "violating" flight operation norms."The chief minister was on the IndiGo flight from Thiruvananthapuram to Delhi via Kochi. The flight took off from the state capital at 1830 hrs and landed in Kochi on schedule. However, he had to change the flight at the Kochi airport as it was informed that IndiGo did not have the required permissions to land in Delhi," an official from the chief minister's office said.
Chandy later boarded an Air India flight scheduled for 2000 hrs to reach Delhi, the official added. Earlier in the day, taking serious note of violations, aviation regulator took penal action against three airlines --
Jet Airways, IndiGo and GoAir -- by taking away their six landing slots (two of each airline) at the Delhi airport with immediate effect for not using pilots trained to land in foggy conditions and not equipping aircraft with mandatory devices to negate the effect of fog, resulting in diversion of flights.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had earlier this month issued a stern warning to airlines to deploy pilots trained to fly under foggy conditions and aircraft fitted with devices to match CAT-III instrument landing system (ILS) in Delhi or face severe action. DGCA's meeting with the airlines and airport operators was held on January 7, two days after 53 flights were diverted from the fog-hit Delhi to nearby destinations. The largescale diversion was caused mainly due to the airlines operating planes with pilots not trained to land in foggy conditions or the aircraft not fitted with the CAT-III ILS-matching devices.
On Wednesday, visibility at the Delhi Airport had started dropping after 1730 hrs and the runway visual range started to come down around 2030 hrs and this trend was brought to the notice to these airlines, a civil aviation ministry release said. However, in spite of repeated efforts, two flights each of Jet Airways, Go Air and IndiGo were diverted from Delhi to Jaipur, the release said, adding by not adhering to the DGCA directives, the airlines had violated several sections of the civil aviation regulations (CARs) leading to the penal action.
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