NEW DELHI/BENGALURU (Reuters) -India’s aviation watchdog said it has placed budget airline SpiceJet under enhanced surveillance with immediate effect after a recent audit revealed “certain deficiencies”.
Thursday’s move came three weeks after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation conducted a special audit following reports of flight cancellations and financial troubles.
“This would entail increase in number of spot checks/ night surveillance with a view to ensure safety of operations,” the DGCA said in a statement, citing the airline’s past record and the special audit.
The watchdog did not disclose the exact issues it found.
The DGCA had conducted a special drive of spot checks on the carrier in 2022 and put it under enhanced surveillance again in 2023. A SpiceJet spokesperson sought more time to comment on the latest action.
The Hindu daily reported earlier in the day that SpiceJet had to operate empty flights from Dubai as passengers were not allowed to check in because of the airline’s unpaid airport dues, marking at least the second such disruption this month.
The current disruption is the latest in a long list of troubles for SpiceJet, which has struggled to fully restore operations despite multiple fundraises over the last year.
A SpiceJet spokesperson said the cancellations were “due to operational issues” and affected passengers were accommodated on subsequent SpiceJet flights, on other airlines or provided with a full refund.
All scheduled flights from Dubai were now operating as planned, according to the spokesperson.
Dubai Airports declined a Reuters request for comment.
Some of SpiceJet’s lessors took it to court to settle unpaid dues and also requested that India’s aviation regulator de-register its planes. This led to the airline’s aircraft being grounded and has weighed on its results, including in the first quarter.
(Reporting by Aditi Shah, Hritam Mukherjee, Nandan Mandayam, Manvi Pant and Ashna Britto; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Sonia Cheema, Mrigank Dhaniwala, Dhanya Skariachan and Pooja Desai)
