DGCA faces severe staff crunch even as airlines expand fleets rapidly

Mint

5 hours ago

Mumbai/Bengaluru: Nearly half of the sanctioned posts at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) remain vacant, underscoring the regulator's inability to fill them at a time when the country's largest carriers expect their fleet size to more than double in the coming five years.
According to submissions made in the Lok Sabha, 814 out of 1,692 sanctioned positions at DGCA remained vacant as of 31 March 2025. DGCA had 878 staff as of 31 March 2025. At the end of March 2020, DGCA had 471 vacancies and 762 people.
According to their latest annual reports, InterGlobe Aviation, which runs India's largest carrier IndiGo, Air India, and SpiceJet had a fleet size of 434, 205, and 61 aircraft, respectively, at the end of March 2025. The country's five largest commercial carriers' fleet increased from 566 at the end of March 2020 to 780 at the end of March 2025, implying 214 planes were added.
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DGCA has added 116 people during this time, as its workforce increased from 762 to 878. However, according to parliament discussion records reviewed by Mint, the number of unfilled positions has jumped from 471 to 814.
Put simply, the world's fastest-growing commercial airline market added more planes than people to oversee safe and efficient air travel.
'The shortage of trained manpower at DGCA is one of the biggest issues," said Amit Singh, the founder of Safety Matters Foundation, a Gurugram-based not-for-profit focused on building a safety culture in the aviation sector.
IndiGo, Air India, and Akasa Air expect to increase their fleets by 950, 570, and 266 planes by 2035.
'This is something that the government of India needs to look at very strongly because if they have encouraged and developed such growth in the aviation sector, the minister concerned should also be looking at how they are going to bring in a professionally skilled workforce into the aviation market," said Sanjay Lazar, chief executive of Avialaz consultants, a boutique aviation consultancy.
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Lazar said greater emphasis should be placed on training to keep up with the 500,000 jobs the aviation sector is estimated to generate by 2030.
'The current staffing levels at DGCA are inadequate for the scale of India's aviation growth," said Ravreet Singh, an independent aviation consultant who also runs an aviation blog calledAvia-Insights. "India's aviation ecosystem is expanding, but regulatory capacity has not scaled in proportion," he said.
Mint has reached out to DGCA, and will update the story with their comment as soon as it is made available.
The inadequate staffing at DGCA is of particular concern, a week after an Air India flight from Ahmedabad to London crashed soon after take off, killing more than 240 people and making it the country's worst civil aviation disaster in almost three decades.
'They don't have the workforce to enforce safety," said captain Mohan Ranganathan, former airline instructor pilot. 'DGCA keeps telling that they are hiring and trying their best to fill the vacant positions, but they are terribly understaffed," he said.
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According to data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), India is the third-largest aviation market in the world based on passenger volume.
According to IATA data, a record 174 million Indian domestic and international passengers flew in 2024, compared to 730 million in China.
'When the fleet size and operational complexity grows quickly, human capital must grow alongside it as well," said Ravreet Singh. 'A shortfall in skilled personnel risks delayed audits, weaker oversight, and limited bandwidth to address emerging safety concerns."