Air India pilots and cabin crew will now have to put in more flying hours as Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh has directed the national carrier to go by the rule book. An official statement said, the direction came after a comparative analysis of the flight duty time limitations, FDTL followed by Air India. The FDTL governs the flight duty hours of pilots and cabin crew. The analysis found that barring one of the six FDTL parameters regarding Rest Period, all others followed by the carrier for its pilots and crew members were on the lower side compared to what was laid down by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, DGCA.

The other parameters include number of landings, maximum daily flight duty period, maximum daily flight time, weekly, monthly or annual limitation of flying hours, Staff on Duty travel or positioning for duty.

According to the analysis, the pilots were found operating flights for 6.5 hours on domestic and seven hours on international sectors, against the DGCA guidelines of nine hours for domestic and 10 hours for international sectors.

The duty hours were on lower side because the pilots and cabin crew unions had inked agreements with the airline management several years ago. The minister's direction will imply negation of these agreements.