No crisis? DGCA says report of urgent meet in wake of Airfare spike is 'wrong'

Airfare Crisis:  A day after reports claimed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has called a crisis meet to discuss airfare surge, the aviation watchdog today called such news fake. News agency PTI on Monday quoted a senior government official as saying that the aviation watchdog DGCA has called a meeting on Tuesday afternoon to discuss with airlines the hike in airfares as Jet Airways continues to ground its aircraft and cancel a significant number of flights. The DGCA today said this news is wrong. New agency ANI today quoted DGCA sources as saying that there were "speculative news in media that the DGCA has called all airlines to discuss on airfare hikes due to major Jet Airways flight cancellations and Pakistan airspace closure. This news is wrong."

On Monday, PTI had quoted the said official as saying that the problem of rising airfares in Indian market had "aggravated" as the DGCA grounded all 12 of SpiceJet's 737 Max aircraft on March 13 in the wake of the Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed 157 people. "DGCA has called a meeting at Tuesday noon to discuss the airfare rise because of significant number of cancellations done by Jet Airways in the last few weeks," the government official was quoted as saying. 

On Monday, Jet Airways Monday said it has grounded four more planes. The total number of Jet Airways fleet of aircraft that are now non-operational due to non-payment of lease rentals has reached 41. Etihad Airport services informed passengers in a notification on Sunday, "Jet Airways has cancelled all their flights from Abu Dhabi with immediate effect from March 18 due to operational reasons". 

Jet Airways' flight cancellations have increased gradually due to the rising number of grounded aircraft since the last few weeks. 

Jet Airways told stock exchanges in its filing on Monday, "An additional four aircraft have been grounded due to non-payment of amounts outstanding to lessors under their respective lease agreements."

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Ethiopian Airline Crash 

A 737 MAX aircraft had crashed on March 10 near Addis Ababa, killing 157 people. This was second such incident in less than five months. In October last year, an aircraft operated by Lion Air had crashed, killing over 180 people in Indonesia.