Air travel in India significantly improved as compared to last 2 years, says DGCA’s report

Just as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) audits India's aviation security to ensure that the country's aviation sector meets international standards, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has released an optimistic report named – ‘Annual Safety Review-2023’. The report reflects that air travel in India has significantly improved as compared to the last two years.

How does DGCA measure the safety of air travel in India?

The regulator does this by identifying certain National - High-Risk Categories of Occurrences (N-HRCs). A few examples of these occurrences are runway excursions, abnormal runway contact, GPWS/EGPWS warnings etc. The regulator weighs these occurrences in line with the ICAO Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP).

Let us look at some of the occurrences mentioned by the DGCA in its report and how it has met its safety target.

. Ground proximity warning systems (GPWS) and enhanced ground proximity warning systems (EGPWS) are safety systems on aircraft that alert pilots to potential collisions with obstacles or terrain. The report states that the number of number of GPWS/EGPWS warnings per 10,000 departures has reduced by 92% and achieved the target thereby reducing the risk of controlled flight into terrain.

The report also shows reduced risk of Runway Excursions and Abnormal Runway Contact as the number of unstabilized approaches that continue to land per ten thousand approaches has shown a continuous decreasing trend with a reduction of approximately 23% and met the target.

DGCA reviews the performance of NASP in terms of safety performance indicators (SPI) and safety performance targets is assessed annually and published as Annual Safety Review (ASR). The report, in short is an analysis of the aggregate safety data derived from the DGCA database and external sources such as ICAO iSTARS for the preceding year.

This data-driven approach ensures a firm embedding of the safety culture in the aviation growth trajectory and provides a robust process to identify emerging safety issues and continually refine existing procedures.