Don’t fly Boeing 737 Max to or over India, DGCA tells flydubai

NEW DELHI: India on Tuesday denied UAE budget carrier flydubai’s request for operating its Boeing 737 Max on flights to the country for now. A senior Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) officials “some more time is needed to gauge the performance of the aircraft and therefore it (flydubai Max request for India) has been denied for the time being.”
Incidentally, flydubai started re-using its B737 Max for commercial operations for the first since their global grounding in March 2019 on Thursday with a Dubai-Sialkot flight.
Flydubai has sought India’s nod to operate the Max to and from India and also to overfly the Indian airspace on flights between its Dubai hub and other countries. “DGCA has denied permission to flydubai both for operating the B737 Max to India and for this aircraft to overly Indian airspace,” said a person in the know.
India, which has 18 Max of SpiceJet and erstwhile Jet Airways parked here, is yet to approve this grounded-since March 2019 aircraft to fly in its airspace again after carrying out the required corrective modifications. Boeing had recently begun “return to service” modification work on the five B737 Max in India that now-defunct Jet Airways had in its fleet.
Once complete, the two foreign lessors of these five planes will seek India’s nod to either fly them to their home countries or to new customers abroad. This modification work has not started on the 13 Max of SpiceJet as the Indian budget airline says that process can happen only after the Indian DGCA approves of the changes.
“flydubai will only operate its Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in airspace where the regulator has approved it for passenger service… It is for each regulatory body to set the requirements and timelines for return to service for the MAX aircraft. Flydubai will only operate the aircraft where it has been approved to do so,” the airline spokesperson had recently said.
Flydubai says “passengers will be notified in advance of travel if their itinerary now includes a flight that is scheduled to be operated by a Max.”
The Max were globally grounded in March 2019 soon two Max crashed within five months. In all, 346 people died in these two crashes. Since last December, the B737 Max has been allowed to fly again by regulators in some places like the US and Europe after carrying out the required changes in software and hardware. The first request the Indian DGCA has received for resuming Max operations is from flydubai.