SpiceJet's woes continue: Now DGCA wants to know how much the airline owes to banks, tax authorities

New Delhi: SpiceJet’s woes continue to mount. A day after aviation regulator DGCA decided to conduct an engineering audit of the ailing airline, it expanded the scope of the audit further. DGCA sources told CNBC-TV18 that SpiceJet has been asked several additional questions related to its dues.

“We are concerned about the health of this airline. We have asked for dues SpiceJet owes to airports, lessors, income tax authorities, service tax department, banks and oil companies. SpiceJet has been given a week to come back with details on all these aspects,” these sources said.

Meanwhile, the engineering audit will commence shortly. The regulator plans to form a 3-member committee for this purpose. The terms of reference of this team include: examining the conditions of stores and whether adequate spares are available with the airline, why have there been many technical snags with SpiceJet, are engineering people of the airline adequately qualified etc.

The DGCA sources said that though the regulator has already commenced a detailed financial audit of all airlines, the questions posed to SpiceJet transcend the audit which other airlines will undergo.

Earlier, SpiceJet said in a statement the average age of its aircraft is just 4.75 years, making it one of the youngest fleets. “Like all other airlines, we are subject to regular and ongoing audits by DGCA and we are fully compliant with all safety regulations,” the airline said.

The SpiceJet saga began on Monday when DGCA asked it to refund full fare to passengers of one of its flights which it was delayed by close to 5 hours last month. In an unprecedented order, the regulator also asked SpiceJet to refund all the money (Rs 15000) it had charged the passengers to sell them food after the delay when rules require it to offer refreshments for delay beyond two hours for free.

But the painstaking details which DGCA went into before taking the airline to task about that one delayed flight had other ramifications: the regulator spoke to several engineers, flights attendants and pilots of SpiceJet in the course of its investigations. And DGCA sources had said earlier that the cabin crew appeared “clueless” about what needs to be done when a flight is delayed or when takeoff is aborted and passengers need to be taken care of after returning to the ground. These sources also claimed that engineers spoke of irregular aircraft maintenance which lead to an aborted takeoff of this particular flights.

The upshot of all this is the unprecedented audit of SpiceJet by DGCA.

In its defence, the airline said “SpiceJet acknowledges it was unable to provide refreshments to all passengers at the 2 hour point due to the unusual nature of the delay. The delay occurred due to a technical snag……SpiceJet has a standard policy of serving complementary refreshments on the ground at the airport terminal to all passengers if a delay is expected to approach two hours, but like most budget airlines, carries only a limited quantity of food and beverages on board. We were therefore unable at short notice to provide food for everyone. However as a result of this incident, we have adjusted our processes for handling such situations in the future.”