The Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has conducted safety inspections of Turkish Airlines’ passenger and cargo flights at Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bengaluru recently and flagged safety violations.

The violations include uncertified marshallers, absence of aircraft maintenance engineers and improper handling of dangerous goods and directed the foreign airlines to address these shortcomings promptly.

Recently, the India-Turkey commercial relationship has strained because of geopolitical tensions after Turkey assured support for Pakistan during the recent conflict between the two neighbouring countries.

According to sources, to ensure compliance with both international and national safety regulations, the aviation regulator carried out the inspections from May 29 to June 2 as part of the surveillance of foreign aircraft programme in some foreign airlines.

The DGCA found that at Bengaluru, the marshaller handling ground operations lacked proper authorisation and a valid competency card for marshalling functions. At the Delhi Airport, the aviation watchdog found improper handling of dangerous goods.

Recently, the government has cancelled the security clearance of the Turkish origin company Celebi Aviation for ground handling services in many airports, including Delhi.