The most critical finding of the report is the DGCA’s severe personnel shortage
India’s aviation safety regulator is grappling with a severe staffing crisis that poses an “existential threat” to the country’s flight safety, a parliamentary panel has warned in a new report. The findings, tabled in the upper house of parliament, follow a review of aviation safety prompted by the recent Air India plane crash that killed 260 people.
The report by the parliamentary committee, comprising lawmakers from both governing and opposition parties, states that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) “in its current form, is not in a position to discharge its duties for which it was established.” While India is the world’s third-largest aviation market, the committee’s findings highlight a series of systemic vulnerabilities across the sector.
The most critical finding of the report is the DGCA’s severe personnel shortage. According to the committee, only 553 out of 1,063 sanctioned posts have been filled, representing a shortfall of almost 50 per cent .The report calls the regulator’s hiring model “slow and inflexible,” hindering its ability to attract skilled talent.
The finding directly contradicts a previous statement by the civil aviation ministry, which told parliament earlier this month that the staffing shortage had “not impacted the functioning of DGCA.” In a recent interview, the DGCA chief similarly defended the regulator, citing global metrics to argue that India’s safety record consistently performs better than the world average.
The panel flagged a range of other challenges, including fatigue among air traffic controllers (ATCs). It said the country’s aviation boom has put ATCs under “immense pressure,” particularly at metropolitan airports, where many operate under “prolonged and fatiguing duty schedules.” The report also noted that some ATC staff are insufficiently trained and warned that the “mismatch between recruitment and training capacity, coupled with operational overload, poses a direct and ongoing threat to airspace safety.”
Furthermore, the report drew attention to a high rate of runway incursions, which it called a “high-consequence event” with a direct risk of collision.10 The committee found that out of every one million movements on the runway in 2024, there were 14.12 incursions, a figure significantly higher than the target of 9.78.
To address these systemic vulnerabilities, the parliamentary panel recommended that the DGCA be granted “full financial and administrative autonomy.”12 It also stressed the need for a more robust error reporting system, urging the regulator to adopt a “Just Culture”—a framework that balances accountability with the understanding that human error is inevitable.13 The report suggested mandating detailed root-cause analyses for every runway incursion and other high-risk events like bird strikes.
The report concludes that without sweeping reforms, the regulator’s ability to effectively oversee the country’s booming aviation sector will remain severely compromised.
