Bharat Bhushan may be on agenda at airline CEOs-DGCA meet

The CEOs of all domestic scheduled airlines have been called for an urgent meeting by the new, interim Director General of Civil Aviation Prashant N Sukul, tomorrow afternoon to evaluate airlines’ safety preparedness and discuss other issues.

The meeting, which may have been routine otherwise, is significant because of two factors: 1) EK Bharat Bhushan has been booted out as the DGCA just 48 hours back for allegedly planning strict action against Kingfisher Airlines on safety issues, after the airline continued to be in dire financial stress 2) the government has called into question the DGCA’s power in cancelling the license of an airline or taking any other action against an airline based on their financial situation.

The meeting also comes amid fresh allegations over the manner and reasons for the abrupt removal of Bharat Bhushan. Sources close to him alleged today that he had made file notings on Monday about Kingfisher’s precarious financial health and how it could impinge on safety.

“The notings mentioned how Kingfisher’s fleet size was earlier reduced from 64 to 16 but has not been brought back to the original size; disruption to Kingfisher’s flights to the North East continues; the airline’s marketing arrangement with the AITA continues to stand cancelled and how all its recovery plans remain unfulfilled. The notings specify that the airlines owes salary arrears to employees and vendors and the DGCA wrote that extreme financial stress could impinge on safety. He gave a 15-day timeline before KIngfisher’s license would be cancelled on these grounds”.

But Sukul denied all these allegations, saying there were no such file notings and nothing had been sent to the ministry on Kingfisher by the DGCA’s office. He also asserted that there were no safety issues with any airline at present.

How the ministry and DGCA were on opposite sides of the table during Bharat Bhushan’s time is clear from a letter dated June 12th written by Sarvesh Arya, an undersecretary in the ministry. “It is noticeable that under the Aircraft Act, Moca (Central Government) alone has power wrt economic regulation of air transport. The safety regulations of DGCA on financial stress need to be redefined and rechristened. The financial surveillance by DGCA gives an impression as if DGCA is undertaking financial audit of financial statements of airlines. It is suggested that the relevant CAR be termed as “assessment of impact of financial stress on safety of opaerations” rather than financial surveillance”.

Sukul said the DGCA does not have the powers or capability to draw safety conclusions from the balance sheet of an airline and this matter must be decided by the ministry. He said the ex-DGCA had closed the matter of the safety audit of airlines on May 25th and this will be taken up afresh at tomorrow’s meeting. “If Kingfisher is not following its schedule submitted to DGCA, this will be taken up tomorrow.”

So does Bharat Bhushan’s exit have to do merely a bureaucratic delay from the Cabinet Committee on Appointments (CCA) or does it belie a long drawn power tussle between bureaucrats in the ministry and Bharat Bhushan, himself a seasoned bureaucrat? Also, there were unconfirmed reports today of the ACC having rejected the name of Arun Misra, the man Civil Aviation minister Ajit Singh has chosen to succeed Bharat Bhushan.