The Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) has asked the DGCA to take action against all pilots who operated flights since August 2015 when the breath analyser rule kicked in and not just the 132 on Air India’s Kuwait-Goa-Chennai and Dubai-Goa-Bengaluru routes who skipped the test.

In a communication to BS Bhullar, Director-General of Civil Aviation, T Praveen Keerthi, General Secretary, ICPA questioned why the DGCA has taken data of only these two flights from the entire network of Air India and that too for the past three months and not since the rule became effective in August 2015.

ICPA represents the interests of pilots operating Air India’s narrow body or the Airbus A-320 fleet. Before the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines, ICPA represented the interests of Indian Airlines’ pilots.

Indian Airlines had a fleet of only narrow body aircraft which were deployed to operate domestic and international flights to destinations in South East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East.

The ICPA communication points out that there are three other flights — Sharjah-Thiruvanthapuram, Shanghai-Delhi-Mumbai and Hong Kong-Delhi-Mumbai — in the airline’s network which have not been considered by DGCA.

The letter also points out that there is no provision in the rules to suspend the licences in a “phased manner” as the DGCA is planning. The letter adds that “any pilot failing the breath analyser test is taken off flying duty immediately.”

Stressing that the pilots whose licences are being considered for cancellation underwent the breath analyser test at the final port of termination and did not evade the test, the letter also adds that interpretation of the laws to where the tests should be conducted was a matter between DGCA and Air India and the onus for this was not on the pilots or crew members.

The genesis of the fight between the DGCA and AI pilots stems from the fact that the airline regulator cracked the whip and asked the airline to decide on the fate of the pilots soon otherwise the regulator would step in.

The lapse on the part of 132 pilots and over 400 cabin crew was detected during a surveillance carried out by the DGCA in June this year.