NEW DELHI, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- India's civil aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has made significant changes in the regulations pertaining to flight duty time limitations for flight crew, in a bid to increase pilots' rest periods and the degree of their alertness.
The revised regulations mandate increased weekly rest periods from 36 hours to 48 hours for flight crew, thus ensuring sufficient time for recovery from cumulative fatigue.
For night duties the definition of night has been amended to cover the period of 00:00-06:00 hours in the revised regulations compared to the period of 00:00-05:00 hours under the previous regulations.
Besides, the maximum flight time and maximum flight duty period for flight operations encroaching night have been restricted to 8 hours for flight time and 10 hours for flight duty period, and the number of landings has been limited to only two landings as compared to the maximum permissible 6 landings under previous regulations during night operations, thus enhancing flight safety.
The revised regulations are effective forthwith, and the airline operators are required to comply with the revised regulations latest by June 1. ■
