India puts a three-aircraft limit on permits

India have made some changes to their rules for permit requests. The big one is that you can now only put three aircraft registrations on a request: one primary and two alternates.

Word on the street is that some operators were putting their entire fleet on the application, so they could use pretty much any aircraft if the planned one went tech. And it seems the DGCA wasn’t too keen on that!

So for an operator with a fleet of 20 aircraft, that makes things a little more interesting. Pick the wrong three and you’ll need to get the permit changed if you end up using another aircraft.

The new guidance was issued in an email from the DGCA on 19 August 2026, which went like this:

Lots of words there, friends. But the main things worth mentioning from that list:

You can submit a permit request no more than 10 working days before the flight. So you can’t get too far ahead of yourself.
For changes to the permit, the DGCA say this will only be considered in exceptional circumstances. But local permit agents tell us that in reality this is not normally a problem, and as long as you get your change request in during DGCA working hours they can get it changed within 6 hours. Contact them at ops@srcaviation.com to do the needful.

But either way, if your aircraft goes tech, don’t leave the permit change til the last minute!

One More Question

Here’s something we asked, thinking we might’ve thought up a clever work-around:

For an operator with more than 3 aircraft who doesn’t know which aircraft will operate the flight, can they submit multiple permit applications (with up to 3 registrations on each) and obtain multiple permit numbers, then use whichever permit covers the aircraft actually operating?

The answer: no.

So that was the end of that.

Standard Permit Rules

One other thing to note is this new thing about max-three-planes-on-permit-requests is for all for non-scheduled/private permit requests – not scheduled airline ones. The India AIP says that private/charter/bizav/non-sched flights all fall into the same bucket when it comes to permit requests – they basically all follow the same process.

Expect 24hrs lead time for overwater flights and 3 working days for flights crossing Indian landmass.

And on that point…

Overwater Flights

You don’t need a permit if you’re not overflying India’s landmass. Kinda interesting, but not actually very useful for most overflights between the Middle east and Asia as all the airways cross the land.

But worth knowing if you’re maybe planning a flight to the likes of VRMM/Male in the Maldives! (Can’t think of anywhere else where this no-permit-required-for-oceanic-flights would actually be useful, can you?)

The Pakistan Gotcha

Not really a gotcha, because no one has a plane registered in India or Pakistan. And if you do, you’ll know this already.

But here it is anyway. India and Pakistan have had reciprocal airspace bans in place since the 2025 conflict, and they’re still being extended – so Indian reg aircraft still can’t use Pakistan airspace, and vice versa.