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India’s civil aviation regulator considers relaxing rules for wet leasing aircraft
October 3rd 2025
India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked for views on removing the government requirement that airlines can only wet-lease aircraft in emergencies. Read More » If the rule change is approved it will be easier for India’s carriers to add capacity to their fleets. The Economic Times of India reports the proposed change could help IndiGo, the country’s largest airline by market share, which has wet-leased two aircraft from Turkish Airlines to start services to Europe and the U.S. Air India is unhappy with the possible policy shift and is lobbying against it. The DGCA permits airlines to enter into wet leases in emergencies such as unexpected grounding of aircraft. The draft proposal, posted on DGCA’s website, is open to public consultation until October 28. It replaces the word “only” with “normally”, making processing of requests potentially easier.
