With Air India, IndiGo and Vistara looking to expand their global footprint, and Akasa Air set to begin international operations in December, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has made it easier for domestic carriers to fly to new foreign destinations.
The aviation regulator has pruned the preparedness checklist for domestic airlines from 33 points to just 10, making it easier for them to spread their network to hitherto unserved places.
“The DGCA conducts this assessment to check the preparedness levels of Indian airline operators before permitting their operations to a new foreign destination. In order to further ease the process for grant of such permission the existing regulatory requirements have been comprehensively reviewed in consultation with all stakeholders and the current 33-point checklist has been rationalised and reduced to a 10-point checklist related to their preparedness for the intended operations, removing other generic and redundant provisions in the existing checklist,” the aviation regulator said in a statement.
Officials said that the move will significantly reduce the documentation and compliances required to be submitted by the operators. The new checklist, for instance, has removed the need for carriers to comply with generic and redundant provisions such as the need for an airline’s CEO to furnish an undertaking to the DGCA that the laws, rules, regulations and requirements of the country to which carry will fly shall be complied with.
However, key safety requirements like the need for airlines to furnish insurance policy covering its liability in accordance with the provisions of relevant Acts and Montreal Convention, 1999, have been retained.
While IndiGo is looking to start direct flights to six new destinations in Africa and Central Asia in August, Air India is looking to increase flights to Europe, West Asia and the US.