NEW DELHI: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) Vikram Dev Dutt has been transferred to the Ministry of Coal as Secretary, in the wake of surge of bomb threats to Indian carriers. A Joint Secretary level official is likely to take his place at the earlier according to sources.According to some estimated Indian airlines have received close to 70 bomb threats in less than a week. On Saturday officials from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) had a meeting with the CEOs of different airline operators in the civil aviation ministry at Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan.It is learnt that the CEOs were briefed about the Standard Operationg Procedure (SOP) for tackling threats which causes fear and inconvenience to passengers and also losses for the airlines as they end up diverting flights and have to cancel and reschedule them.According to reports from civil aviation sector, nearly 30 bomb threats were made to various flights on Saturday.“The Internet Protocol (IP) addressed from the threats today and the ones earlier this week have been traced to London, Germany, Canada and the US. However, it is possible the Virtual Private Networks (VPN) were used by some to hide their real locations,’’ according to a source.Aviation regulator DGCA and the BCAS are expected to issue fresh guidelines.On Saturday a Mumbai-Colombo Vistara flight reported a bomb scare.“The management of Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) adopted all security precautionary and preventive measures in response to a reported bomb scare. The flight with 96 passengers and 8 crew landed safely,’’ said Aruna Rajapaksha, Head of Airport Management BIA.Meanwhile, on Saturday nearly five Vistara flights on international routes received bomb threats through social media while four IndiGo flights received similar messages. The other carriers who received threats included Air India, Air India Express, Akasa, SpiceJet, Star Air and Alliance Air.
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