DGCA Annual Audit 2025 Reveals 263 Lapses at Airlines

As part of its routine yearly audit, India's aviation regulator announced on Wednesday that it had discovered 263 safety-related violations at the nation's airlines, including 23 at the biggest carrier, IndiGo, and 51 at the second-largest, Air India. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said on Wednesday that the audits were conducted in accordance with international best practices and the regulations of the International Civil Aviation Organization but warned that larger fleet sizes typically result in a higher number of findings.

In its July assessment, the DGCA discovered 51 safety violations at Air India, including inadequate training for certain pilots, the use of unapproved simulators, and a subpar rostering system, according to a Reuters story on Tuesday. The catastrophic Boeing 787 disaster in Ahmedabad last month, which claimed 260 lives, had nothing to do with the audit.

According to the DGCA, it also discovered 17 flaws at Vistara, which is now a part of Air India, and 14 at SpiceJet. The regulator discovered 25 violations at Air India Express, the low-cost airline of Air India. The audit of Akasa Air is still pending. The regulator separated the list of breaches into "Level I" (major breaches) and "Level II" (other non-compliances), although it did not specify the specific types of lapses that were discovered. The DGCA said that 19 "Level I" violations were discovered at Indian Airlines.