India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), has announced that it will increase the mandatory weekly rest period for flight crew from 36 hours to 48 hours.
The aviation regulator also laid out reforms to create safer conditions by managing and reducing fatigue-related risks in the aviation industry.
India’s Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce that the administration will employ the Fatigue Risk Management S ystem (FRMS), a data-driven approach to enhance monitoring of flight crew fatigue.
The revised regulations come months after an IndiGo pilot scheduled to operate a flight from Nagpur’s Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport (NAG) to Pune Airport (PNQ) collapsed and died at the airport boarding gate in August 2023.
Reports showed that the pilot had taken 27 hours of rest from his last flight duty.
In addition, DGCA also cut the maximum flight duty period to 10 hours from 13 hours for pilots working nights, and limited the number of flight landings to two from six during night operations. It also amended the definition of night duty to cover the first six hours of the day instead of the first five hours.
“These changes — that are very much in line with international best practices — will ensure India has the necessary arsenal, as it prepares to clinch the largest domestic aviation market title in the future,” Scindia said.