NEW DELHI: India has moved to establish more effective oversight over wet/damp leased aircraft — where an Indian operator hires planes with operating crew from a foreign operator — as global supply chain constraints have led to an increase in the number of such aircraft here.
While all operational aspects are under the foreign operator, Indian
airlines
opting for wet leases only look after commercial aspects of the flights on these aircraft.
The Directorate General of
Civil Aviation
(
DGCA
) now proposes to restrict wet/damp lease only from countries having a reliable safety oversights system and also standardise its surveillance on such operations.
“Indian carriers have been using wet/damp lease of aircraft to tide over the short term situation of unforeseen grounding of aircraft due to various reasons. This trend of wet/damp leasing of foreign aircraft has increased in recent past in view of grounding of significant number of aircraft due to engine and supply chain issues,” the DGCA said in a statement.
Wet/damp lease of aircraft by an Indian carrier involves leasing of foreign aircraft along with crew, maintenance, and insurance (ACMI), and the aircraft is under the operational control of the foreign operator (lessor). The aircraft operation is subject to regulatory requirements of the foreign civil aviation authority concerned and the
safety oversight
of such operation is also under the purview of foreign authority concerned. The role of Indian operators is limited to commercial aspects of operations.
The has issued a draft for public consultation on the revised civil aviation requirements (CAR or rules) on wet/damp lease operations by Indian Operator “so as to strengthen the regulatory framework for safety oversight of wet/damp lease operations.”
The proposed changes include:
- Aircraft can be wet/damp leased only from ICAO contracting states having an average Effective Implementation (EI) score of 80% or above (with a minimum of 70% in each area) in the areas of personnel licensing, airworthiness and operations as per the latest results of ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP).
- State of the Operator (lessor) should not have an active significant safety concern (SSC) under ICAO USOAP.
- Provisions added to ensure reporting of safety occurrences, and furnishing the flight data and other requisite safety information to DGCA.
- The Indian operator shall ensure compliance of requirement of breath-analyser examination of the foreign crew/personnel engaged in the operation, as per policy and procedures approved by DGCA for their own aircraft operations.
- DGCA inspectors shall have access to all aircraft records for physical inspection of aircraft at any point of time during such operations.
- With the enhanced regulatory framework and standardised mechanism for surveillance of such operations by DGCA, the period for such wet/damp lease operations has been increased from the current 3 months (extendable for another 3 months) to 6 months (extendable for another 6 months).
