The airline executives have raised concerns over the Directorate General of Civil Aviation”s (DGCA”s) new rule, which asks airlines to increase their pilot strength by 20% within three months or cut flights to conform to the rules and limit the duty period to 10 hours (from 13 hours previously) if the pilot”s reporting time falls during the night period, saying it is detrimental to the growth of the industry as it may lead to flight cancellations and escalation of costs, which in turn might reflect in fares.

The new rule forces airlines to increase their pilot strength by 20% within three months or cut flights to conform to the rules, extends the night period by an hour from the current 12 am to 5 am definition to 12 am to 6 am, and limits the duty period to 10 hours (from 13 hours previously) if the pilot”s reporting time falls during the night period. The rule will come into effect from June 1 onward.

The regulations also limit the number of landings a pilot can do to two (uncapped previously) and cut down the period for which airlines can exceed the limit during unforeseen circumstances, such as bad weather or air-traffic delays, from three to two hours.

“We all want to ensure safe flying, but the new rules are incredibly limiting and an overreaction. This will be disruptive, as increasing the number of pilots in such a short time is practically impossible,” the CEO of an airline told the Economic Times, asking not to be named.

The executives also said the airlines need to train pilots and approve and publish their new duty scheme by May, as the first officers should fly the stipulated hours before they are appointed as captains. Moreover, airlines will now need an extra set of pilots or have to arrange for hotels for overnight stays for the crew, leading to increased operational costs.

“It”s impossible to do this within that period, and airlines will be forced to reduce flights to conform to the rules,” the CEO, quoted above, said.

“Think about the reality. For a flight departing at 7 a.m., pilots have to sign at 6 a.m. For flights that end at 11:30 p.m., pilots have to sign off at midnight. The majority of all duty periods either start or fall within this window. So, the majority of work days are now limited to two sectors,” an official who handles the scheduling of crew said.

“The impact will be severe and is likely to disrupt operations and increase costs. We expect airlines will need 20% more pilots to sustain current operations,” Kapil Kaul, CEO, South Asia, at aviation consultancy firm CAPA, said.

However, pilots and DGCA officials have welcomed the rule, claiming that it was imposed after extensive consultation and feedback from the industry.

“According to extensive research, pilots operating between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. remain the most vulnerable to fatigue because it falls within the window of circadian low (WOCL), meaning the body experiences the highest level of sleepiness and performance capability is at its lowest. We wanted to limit the number of flights a pilot does during that period,” a senior DGCA official said.