New Delhi: The government has held two meetings with concerned airlines and airport authority officials to improve on-time performance at Delhi and Mumbai
airports, Lok Sabha was informed on Thursday.
Replying to a question, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said during the morning flights out of Delhi, all the airlines would close their gates and take a push-back at least
15 minutes before scheduled time of departure.
For flights coming into Delhi and are turning around for departure, ATC will try its best to provide a slot close to their scheduled time of departure, he said in a written reply.
"Under no circumstances, push-back would be taken without closure of gates. Once the permission for push-back has been granted by ATC, the permission would only be valid for next five minutes. If the aircraft has not been physically pushed back within this period, the permission would automatically get cancelled and the aircraft would fall back in the queue and would be considered for push-back in the next available slot as per the queue," the minister said.
He added that as per a DGCA circular, airlines not adhering to the approved time slots shall be liable to lose the slot in the next schedule.
To another question, Patel said there was no plan to revive the defunct Vayudoot Airlines, but, in a meeting held in October the board of directors of Vayudoot Ltd recommended that NACIL may initiate a study to look into the feasibility
of starting operations and maintenance of smaller capacity aircraft to tier-4 cities.
Answering another question, the minister said as many as 18 firms were granted security and ground security clearance during the last two years.
Patel also said that as per the revised Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR), there are no guidelines for appointing expatriate pilots. The expatriate pilots are recruited by
airline operators on their own, depending upon their requirement.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, November 25, 2010, 16:06