DGCA plans to make mandatory for airlines operating in India to report flight data

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) plans to make it mandatory for airlines operating in the country to report the time of arrival and departures of their flights, and delays, if any. According to report in LiveMint by Tarun Shukla, the data will be published monthly along with passenger data. DGCA has also asked all airlines to submit a detailed report on the ongoing time performance of their flights every fortnight. This data will be collated to analyse the reasons for delayed flights at various airports, this will be the first effort to put in place such a monitoring mechanism.

In 2007, briefly, DGCA had instituted a system of random checks to ascertain the reasons for flight delays when airlines had started levying an air congestion charge on tickets to compensate for the extra aviation fuel burnt when planes circle over crowded airports awaiting permission to land. In India, on-time performance is defined with the flight’s take-off or arrival within 15 minutes of the scheduled time. “Airlines say there is congestion