SpiceJet cancels 14 flights for Wednesday as DGCA grounds Boeing 737 Max aircraft
New Delhi: Following the grounding of Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft by Indian aviation watchdog DGCA, SpiceJet Wednesday said it has cancelled 14 flights and will be operating additional flights from Thursday.
The airline has around 12 such aircraft in its fleet.
"SpiceJet has presently announced cancellation of 14 flights for today and will be operating additional flights from tomorrow.
"Of the 76 planes in our fleet, 64 aircraft are in operations and we are confident of minimising the inconvenience to our passengers and attain normalcy in our operations," SpiceJet said in a statement Wednesday,
On Tuesday night, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) announced its decision to "immediately" ground the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft that are currently being used by airline companies in India.
The decision came days after a 737 MAX 8 aircraft operated by the Ethiopian Airlines crashed near Addis Ababa killing 157 people, including four Indians.
However, a DGCA official told PTI on Wednesday morning,"We will ground all 737 Max 8 aircraft, which are currently in use by Indian airlines, by 4 pm today."
The aviation watchdog has issued a statement, saying no Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft would be allowed to fly in Indian airspace from 4 pm.
"Consequent to the regulatory directive on the Boeing 737 MAX, SpiceJet has already initiated grounding of its MAX fleet. In order to cause least inconvenience to its passengers and also bring these aircraft to its maintenance base we expect to complete this exercise on or before 4 pm today," the airline added.
The Civil Aviation Ministry will hold a meeting with the airlines at 4 pm Wednesday to prepare a contingency plan as a number of flights have been cancelled because of the grounding of the 737 Max 8 aircraft, said a senior government official.
SpiceJet said Wednesday,"While a majority of passengers affected as a result of these cancellations have been accommodated by SpiceJet on alternate flights, rest have been offered a full-refund."
"Safety and security of our passengers, crew and operations are of utmost importance to us and we are closely working with the regulator and manufacturer to resolve the matter," it added.
The incident on Sunday was second such crash involving the 737 Max 8 aircraft in less than five months.
In October last year, an aircraft operated by Lion Air crashed killing over 180 people in Indonesia.
The European Union and many other countries across the world have already banned the use of 737 Max 8 aircraft in their respective airspace.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
