The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) on Monday gave a safety clearance to Indian budget airline SpiceJet on Monday following an exhaustive audit.
The company in a press release stated that all its operations, safety processes and systems have been found in order in the ICAO audit.
“The comprehensive audit by ICAO firmly establishes SpiceJet’s credentials as a safe airline. ICAO is a specialized agency of the United Nations to promote the safe and orderly development of international civil aviation around the world,” said the release.
SpiceJet was the only scheduled Indian airline which was a part of the ICAO audit. The examination of SpiceJet safety systems helped India achieve its highest ever safety ranking in the ICAO audit.
The auditing committee had visited the SpiceJet Head Office in November this year where it audited and reviewed the various flight critical functions and operational areas such as flight planning, weather assessment, route planning, aircraft serviceability, operations to critical airports, pilot rostering systems, cabin safety procedures etc.
“The ICAO audit is the benchmark of safety. We are proud that our safety culture, systems, processes and operations have been found to be in order and at par with the global best practices and safety standards. This audit is a testament to the highest standard of safety followed by SpiceJet,” said Ajay Singh, Chairman and MD, SpiceJet.
The airline has been under Indian aviation regulator DGCA’s radar for reporting technical snags and glitches. The airline is also facing other headwinds, including some of its aircraft having technical snags in recent times, and quite a few of its Boeing 737 planes were deregistered due to non-payment of dues to lessors.
For the record, SpiceJet had been going through a highly turbulent phase in recent times on account of several glitches and a non-adherence to mandated guidelines in regard to the training of some pilots.
In April 2022, the aviation watchdog the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) restrained 90 pilots of the airline from operating Boeing 737 Max aircraft, after finding they were not properly trained. That was followed by multiple snags in its aircraft. DGCA had in the first week of July also issued a show cause notice to SpiceJet for its failure to establish safe, efficient and reliable services following a spate of eight incidents within a month. The airline was asked to explain in three weeks why no action should be taken against it.
However in October, the regulator removed the 50% cap restrictions on SpiceJet flights that was placed in July.
