New Delhi | All Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets to be grounded by 4 PM on Wednesday, as declared by a senior officer in DCGA, the civil aviation authority.
The decision comes amid the death of 157 people who died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash on Sunday. The flight that crashed was a Boeing 737 MAX 8.
This was the second accident that took place with the same type of aircraft, the first killed 189 people in Indonesia last year.
Following the tragic incident, China was the first country to ban the Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets, with multiple countries and organizations following the lead.
The DCGA on Tuesday night announced that all the commercial airlines will stop the use of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets.
“We will ground all Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft, which are currently in use by Indian airlines, by 4 pm today,” the DGCA official said on Wednesday morning.
“Boeing 737 MAX operations will stop from/to all Indian airports. Additionally, no Boeing 737 MAX aircraft will be allowed to enter or transit the Indian airspace effective 1600 hrs Indian time or 1030 UTC”, as quoted by the ANI.
The DCGA also has called for an emergency meeting by 4PM at New Delhi. The meeting is being held to examine passenger inconvenience and the rising prices of air tickets.
Indian airline companies Spice Jet and Jet Airways have 14 and five of Boeing 737 MAX respectively.
Spicejet released a statement on the microblogging site Twitter on Tuesday, declaring that they have suspended the use of the jets, in accordance with DCGA’s decision.
SpiceJet statement@flyspicejet has suspended Boeing 737 Max operations following DGCA’s decision to ground the aircraft. Safety and security of our passengers, crew and operations are of utmost importance to us. 1/1
— tushar srivastava (@tushar_yes) March 12, 2019
They released another tweet assuring the passengers of an alternate flight or full refund for the inconvenience.
to our passengers and attain normalcy in our operations.
While a majority of passengers affected as a result of these cancellations have been accommodated by SpiceJet on alternate flights, rest have been offered a full-refund.— tushar srivastava (@tushar_yes) March 13, 2019
The European Union and many other countries across the world have already banned the use of the 737 Max 8 aircraft in their respective airspace, with the US analysing the situation.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
