India’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), directed Air India on 20 June 2025 to remove three officials from all crew scheduling and rostering responsibilities. The order also called for internal disciplinary proceedings and a report on their outcome within 10 days. Removal from those duties was not, by itself, a dismissal from the airline or a final finding against the officials.
What DGCA directed Air India to do
The Ministry of Civil Aviation’s answer to Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question 2725 records that Air India was directed on 20 June 2025 to remove three officials from all roles and responsibilities related to crew scheduling and rostering. The answer, issued on 18 August 2025, also records earlier warning letters: one to Air India’s accountable manager on 17 April and letters to three officials on 23 April. Ministry of Civil Aviation, Rajya Sabha answer
Informist, reporting on 21 June and citing a DGCA order it reviewed, said the officials were to be reassigned to non-operational roles while corrective reforms were pending. That is a change in assigned duties, not evidence that they were fired or that the disciplinary process had reached a conclusion. Informist report
Why the regulator intervened
According to the order details reported by Informist, DGCA cited unauthorised and non-compliant crew pairings, breaches of mandatory licensing and recency requirements, and systemic failures in scheduling protocols and oversight. These are the reported grounds for the action; the parliamentary answer confirms the directive but does not list those underlying findings.
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Informist reported that the issues surfaced when Air India voluntarily disclosed violations during a post-transition review from its Aviation Resource Management System (ARMS) to CAE Flight and Crew Management System. The reporting does not establish that the software transition caused the compliance lapses.
Who were the three officials?
Contemporaneous reporting identified the officials as Choorah Singh, a divisional vice president; Pinky Mittal, a chief manager in the Directorate of Operations crew scheduling function; and Payal Arora, from the crew-scheduling planning division. These names and titles were reported from coverage of the order; they are not specified in the cited parliamentary answer.
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What happened next—and what remains unconfirmed
The order, as quoted by Informist, required Air India to begin internal disciplinary proceedings without delay and report their outcome to DGCA within 10 days of the letter’s issue. Air India told Informist it had implemented the directive and that its chief operations officer would directly oversee the Integrated Operations Control Centre in the interim.
The available reporting and parliamentary answer do not establish the eventual disciplinary outcomes or whether DGCA received the report within the stated deadline. The parliamentary answer independently confirms the 20 June removal directive, but not the ten-day follow-up requirement.
Quick Recap
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Timeline
- 17 April 2025: The Ministry’s parliamentary answer records a warning letter to Air India’s accountable manager.
- 23 April 2025: The answer records warning letters to three Air India officials.
- 20 June 2025: DGCA directed Air India to remove three officials from crew scheduling and rostering responsibilities.
- 21 June 2025: Informist published details attributed to the order and quoted Air India’s response.
- 18 August 2025: The Ministry provided the enforcement-action dates in its answer to Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question 2725. It separately said Civil Aviation Requirements 7/J/1, concerning cabin-crew flight duty time and flight time limitations, was under review, with completion expected within six months. That review was separate context, not the stated basis for the June directive.
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