The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has allowed aircraft with seating capacity of up to 19 passengers to operate without any cabin crew on board for a period of one year.
However, the operators of such aircraft also want the regulator to waive additional cabin crew requirement, if they prefer to carry cabin crews on long journeys.
“We welcome the decision to waive the cabin crew requirement. However, if you are travelling over six hours on a corporate jet with less than 19 seats [mainly to international destinations], you have the option of either not taking cabin crew at all or if you decide to take one along, then you have to take two as per current rules and cannot go with one, putting operators in a difficult situation,” said an official of the Business Aircraft Operators’ Association (BAOA).
The BAOA counts some 85 small aircraft operators as its members and its corporate members include subsidiaries of Reliance Industries and Adani Enterprises.
The BAOA has written to the DGCA to ease the additional cabin crew norm as well.
DGCA rules mandate that an aircraft with a running time of more than six hours shall need an additional cabin crew on board, over and above the minimum requirement. This was to ensure sufficient rest for the cabin crew in the case of long-haul flights.
