Give wings to technology, end flight delays in winter

Minister after minister make grandiose announcements about fog preparedness and how all airports will be upgraded to cater to nature’s needs. Are we prepared? 

The ills are due to our long standing Delhi centric policies and flight schedules for several decades. Airlines are reluctant to modify their schedules for the rest of the country as they want to maintain their presence felt in the capital city. None of the nearby airfields are ready to cater for flight diversions when thick fog sets in. All inter-connected schedules get affected, year after year, and passengers suffer. The DGCA and Airlines continue this annual charade and no one is held accountable.

Why is Indian aviation backward? We lack qualified man power to implement what has become the world standard – Performance Based Navigation (PBN) system. All the aircraft flying with airlines in India are equipped with the latest equipment. The country that our government constantly compares itself with, China, introduced PBN approaches in 2003. All the airlines in China have trained man power- pilots and engineers, regulators who oversee safety audits and all ground and satellite based navigation systems integrated.

Where does India stand? In spite of being a signatory of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), India has gone past the deadline for PBN compliance with a mere 1.98% ! This is the pathetic state, because we do not seem to have a single person qualified to bring out the Regulations and Standards, in DGCA! With a lot of fanfare, they announced the launching of the GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) system. Are they being used? The answer is NO. Year after year, we have been lying to ICAO on compliance and implementation of Standards. Unfortunately, Civil Aviation is one subject India is the most backward.

The over- reliance on ground- based navigation aids is the result of Airports Authority of India and DGCA being bereft of qualified personnel to introduce the PBN system. Mere announcements in Parliament that we will have Cat 3 ILS systems in Jaipur and Lucknow don’t reflect ground reality. Neither airfield is compliant for safety standards for Cat 3. People have forgotten the accident to Air India A 320 aircraft a few years back. They landed without fuel and the wing broke as it struck an obstacle near the runway that should not be allowed. Both Air India and DGCA covered this accident as an incident. 

Satellite-based Navigation system is free from ground based system errors. You can augment accuracy with ground based aids, provided you have qualified manpower. China operates in the Himalayan terrain in Tibet with much lower visibility criteria than what our airfields operate under. Political interference should stop and accountability for failures should be brought in to improve the system. 

In 2005, after the deluge shut down Mumbai airports for 3 days, the advantage of having the PBN system was demonstrated to the DGCA. The visibility requirement of 4000m could have been brought down to 600m. Leh, which requires 10km visibility, would have been accessible with 800m. Yet, even in 2016, we have not learned and passengers suffer. We should shake off the apathy.