DGCA officials to visit Air India Gurugram HQ for two-day annual audit amid compliance lapses

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) officials are set to visit Air India headquarters in Gurugram on Tuesday for an "annual surveillance and regulatory audit", revealed a government memo ac. However, the audit is not connected to the recent deadly flight crash involving a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner in Ahmedabad.

This comes amid Air India drawing flak for compliance lapses recently with DGCA on Saturday warning India over "repeated and serious violations". The airline cut down its flight routes due to "operational stability".

Tuesday's audit is expected to end on June 26. Senior Air India executives are mandatorily required to be available during the audit.

The DGCA team inspecting Air India is led by deputy chief flight operations inspector Adhiraj Yadav and is expected to include 10 officials. Besides flight operation inspectors, the team will also include two officials who will inspect cabin safety norms.

The civil aviation safety watchdog will look into documents on the airline's operations as well as assess earlier audits and action-taken reports during the audit, according to the memo accessed by Reuters.

On Saturday, DGCA asked Air India to remove three company executives from crew scheduling roles after violations were found in pilot duty scheduling, following which the airline reassigned the officials. The same day, DGCA directed the Tata-owned airline to submit details on its planned and unplanned inspections, audit, cockpit/en route, station facility, ramp and cabin inspection since 2024.

The regulator has also come up with a comprehensive audit framework for a 360-degree evaluation of the aviation ecosystem. These audits will be carried out in addition to the regulatory audits carried out as per the Annual Surveillance Programme.

India