Scindia vs Tharoor: 'Read facts arm-chair critic'

January 17, 2024 14:32

Aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia smarts at Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's criticism of flight delays and the closure of runways at Delhi airport.

Scindia retorted to Tharoor's 6-part message on X with another 6-part message.

Tharoor had said: "Delhi Airport has been in chaos recently. The young professional wanting to go home for Makar Sankranti. The Army officer excited to visit his ancestral village for Lohri. The anxious son trying to get home to take care of an unwell parent. Thousands of peoples lives and schedules have been disrupted by a regular, predictable, foggy winter day. Its a ModiGovt-made disaster, a result of the Ministry of Civil Aviations neglect and incompetence."

Scindia replied saying, "It is for someone who is lost in his esoteric world of thesaurus that data mining of selective press articles from the internet qualifies as research. Here are some actual facts for arm-chair critic

@ShashiTharoor and the Cong IT Cell that might help tackle their lack of depth in understanding of technical sectors like civil aviation.

"Runway maintenance work is a critical safety element for aviation operations, and any compromise with runway conditions directly jeopardizes passenger safety.

"As a result, the maintenance was taken on top priority to be completed by 15th December before the onset of the fog season. However, due to pollution incidents and enforcement of GRAP-IV in Delhi, the recarpeting got delayed, resulting in a delay of one month in its commissioning. The revamped RWY is getting operational this week.

"The crane was being used for the construction of another critical infrastructure project - the Dwarka Expressway. However, in view of its impact on the runway, it has now been decided that the crane operation shall be allowed only on non-fog days. Thus, RWY 11R/29L is operational as CAT III as of yesterday.

"On sufficiently trained pilots, your claim is incorrect and baseless, as usual! As compared to only 2416 CAT II/CAT III trained pilots in 2014, today we have 6191 CAT II/CAT III trained pilots which is a jump of 2.5 times in the last 9 years. Further, in preparation for the fog season of 2023-24, due to our efforts, the number of CAT II/CAT III trained pilots have grown by 16% in the last three months alone from 5332 to 6191.

"Also, the DGCA mandates airlines to deploy CAT IIIB compliant aircraft only with qualified crew during the winter season. Any violations are strictly dealt with by the regulator, DGCA. For instance, show cause notices were issued to Spicejet and Air India.

"It would be prudent to know about the 3 dependent factors for CAT III Landings viz. Runway Capability, Aircraft Capability and Pilot Accreditation. And thus, CAT III operations are decided by the Highest Common Factor among the three variables.

"The two CAT III runways at Delhi Airport are equipped for aircraft to land with minimum visibility of up to 50 meters. However, the majority of the aircraft fleet in India viz. Airbus 320 (75 mtrs) and Boeing 737 Max (175 mtrs) have visibility minima greater than the runway threshold. Thus, even if the runway is capable and sufficiently trained CAT III pilots are made available, these aircraft are not designed for Zero Visibility operations.

"Further to give you a perspective, JFK ( New York ) airport in the USA has 4 runways, but the airport only has 1 runway capable of CAT III landing which is also with a restricted minima up to 182 mtrs (600 feet) 3.5 times of Indias 50 mtrs!

Go figure it out yourself - Enlightened, Mr Tharoor!

"The treatment meted out to the passengers in the instant case was unacceptable, and we have acted immediately in the form of a show cause notice to the concerned operators. Further, SOPs for better communication to passengers were also issued. Implementation is being monitored thrice daily.

B) CARs implemented during the UPA rule in 2010 were, as expected, inadequate for enforcing passenger rights and had to be amended multiple times by the DGCA to incorporate provisions for safeguarding passenger rights!

C) Further, the DGCA keeps a strict watch on the passenger complaints regarding mistreatment and penalizes operators if found guilty. For instance, since 2022, airlines have been imposed with fines for not providing passenger amenities as per the DGCA guidelines.

This is just baseless rhetoric.

- Airlines that shut shop/were brought to failure during the UPA rule = Kingfisher, Jet Airways, Air India.

Under the NDA govt, along with Akasa, 5 new regional airlines have taken birth under the PMs UDAN vision.

- Fleet size has increased from 400 in 2014 to 730 today, and will reach 1,500 - 2,000 by 2030.

- Airports have doubled from 74 in the last 65 years to 149 today. This will reach 220 in the next 3-4 years.

Hope you are better informed now, Mr

@ShashiTharoor !"

« Back to LIVE

TOP STORIES