{"id":40470,"date":"2024-04-12T07:44:49","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T02:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=40470"},"modified":"2025-10-15T12:56:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T07:26:45","slug":"dgca-flight-duty-time-limitation-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/dgca-flight-duty-time-limitation-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"DGCA\u2019s Flight Duty Time Limitation Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in the News?<\/li>\n<li>About Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)<\/li>\n<li>Functions of DGCA<\/li>\n<li>About Flight Duty Time Limitation Rules<\/li>\n<li>News Summary<\/li>\n<li>Airlines\u2019 Concerns<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in the News?<\/h2>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/dgca\/\" target=\"_blank\">Directorate General of Civil Aviation<\/a> has written to Indian airlines, asking them to indicate when they would be in a position to implement the new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules.<\/p>\n<h2>About Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>DGCA is the regulatory body in the field of Civil Aviation, primarily dealing with safety issues.<\/li>\n<li>It was accorded a statutory status under the <strong>Aircraft (Amendment) Bill, 2020<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It is responsible for regulation of air transport services to\/from\/within India and for enforcement of civil air regulations, air safety and airworthiness standards.<\/li>\n<li>It also co-ordinates all regulatory functions with International Civil Aviation Organisation.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Headquarters<\/strong>: New Delhi<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Functions of DGCA<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Registration of civil aircraft.<\/li>\n<li>Certification of airports.<\/li>\n<li>Licensing to pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers, air traffic controllers and flight engineers, and conducting examinations and checks for that purpose.<\/li>\n<li>Formulation of standards of airworthiness for civil aircraft registered in India and grant of certificates of airworthiness to such aircraft.<\/li>\n<li>Conducting investigation into incidents and serious incidents involving aircraft up to 2250 kg AUW.<\/li>\n<li>Taking accident prevention measures, including formulation of implementation of Safety Aviation Management Programmes.<\/li>\n<li>Checks on the proficiency of flight crew and other operational personnel such as flight dispatchers and cabin crew.<\/li>\n<li>Granting Air Operator&#8217;s Certificates to Indian carriers and regulation of air transport services operating to\/from\/within\/over India by Indian and foreign operators.<\/li>\n<li>Approval of institutes engaged in flying training including simulator training, AME training, air traffic services training, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Safety Oversight of all entities approved\/ certified\/ licensed under the Aircraft Rules 1937.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About Flight Duty Time Limitation Rules<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Flight crew fatigue and exhaustion are seen as major factors contributing to human errors in aircraft operations, which can lead to catastrophic accidents.<\/li>\n<li>Also, fatigue and exhaustion can be dangerous for the health of the crew.<\/li>\n<li>Across airlines, pilots have been expressing concerns over growing fatigue and stress due to:\n<ul>\n<li>Being stretched to their limits in terms of flying hours,<\/li>\n<li>Haphazard and ill-planned rostering, and<\/li>\n<li>Unusually high crew utilisation levels as carriers compete to rapidly expand their networks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) mandates that the country where an aircraft operator or airline is based shall establish regulations for the purpose of managing fatigue.<\/li>\n<li>The DGCA, in 2019, had issued the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) Rules, accordingly.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Key Rules include<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>Different categories of maximum flight duty periods per day based on maximum permitted landings and flight time.<\/li>\n<li>Mandatory rest periods between flight duty periods,<\/li>\n<li>In-flight rest periods for long-haul flights,<\/li>\n<li>Guidelines for scheduling night operations,<\/li>\n<li>Maximum cumulative flight time and duty period limitations per week, two weeks, four weeks, 90 days, and one year.<\/li>\n<li>The rules also include special norms for ultra-long-haul flights.<\/li>\n<li>FDTL rules prohibit airlines from asking flight crew to operate a flight if the prescribed time limitations are exceeded.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>According to the DGCA, airlines are required to establish their own limitations on these counts within the regulator\u2019s framework of fatigue management regulations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>News Summary<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Recently, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has written to Indian airlines, asking them to indicate when they would be in a position to implement the new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules.<\/li>\n<li>The communication from the DGCA follows a hearing in the Delhi High Court earlier this month.<\/li>\n<li>The High Court had asked the DGCA to indicate the tentative date for the implementation of the new FDTL regulations that were initially supposed to be enforced from June 1.<\/li>\n<li>However, the date was deferred due to stiff resistance from airlines. The DGCA was asked to indicate the likely implementation date in the next hearing scheduled for May 8.<\/li>\n<li>The decision to postpone was in line with directions issued to the DGCA by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) in March.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Airlines\u2019 Concerns<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In February, the <strong>Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA)<\/strong>, which comprises <strong>IndiGo<\/strong>, <strong>Air India<\/strong>, and <strong>SpiceJet<\/strong>\u2014had written to the DGCA seeking postponement of the new rules by a year.<\/li>\n<li>Airlines had been voicing concerns that implementation of the new rule would result in a requirement of around 20-25 per cent more pilots, whom they would not be able to hire and train in such a short period.\n<ul>\n<li>As per the new rules, among other changes, mandatory weekly rest period for pilots shall increase to 48 hours from the current 36.<\/li>\n<li>Also, their night flying shall also come down through a combination of extension of definition of \u2018night\u2019 by an hour and curtailing the number of night landings allowed to be made by the same crew.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Clearly, these rules would require airlines to either hire and train more pilots in order to maintain their existing scale of operations. The alternative would be to scale back operations.<\/li>\n<li>The FIA had said that carriers would have to cut capacity by 15-20 per cent if the new rules, notified in January, were implemented from June 1.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hence, the DGCA has written to airlines, asking them to indicate when they would be in a position to implement the new rules.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1. What does Black Box in Flights do?<\/h3>\n<p>The black box, also referred to as the flight data recorder, is a device that logs every action an aircraft takes while in flight. The black box, also referred to as a &#8216;flight data recorder&#8217;, is an instrument that documents all of the operations of the aircraft while it is in flight.<\/p>\n<h3>Q2. In which layer do planes fly?<\/h3>\n<p>Most of the aeroplanes fly in the troposphere. It extends up to approximately 11 km above sea level.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/business\/aviation\/pilot-fatigue-the-back-and-forth-on-new-fdtl-rules-9265121\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Pilot fatigue: The back-and-forth on new FDTL rules<\/u><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/business\/Industry\/pilot-rest-norms-dgca-seeks-implementation-timeline-from-airlines\/article68050632.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Hindu<\/u><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DGCA is the regulatory body in the field of Civil Aviation, primarily dealing with safety issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":40471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}