The move comes after a spurt in cases of drunken crew on aircraft. A DGCA report showed that 123 pilots and cabin crew failed breath tests during the first half of 2019. Over a dozen pilots were suspended for failing the test in September alone.
Airlines such as Air Asia, Air India, GO Air, Indigo, SpiceJet and Vistara will implement the test from October 2.
"Many of our airports, namely, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Calicut, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kannur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Varanasi, Vijayawada, Vishakhapatnam along with some others are getting all set to roll out the implementation of breath analyser examination," according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation in a tweet on Tuesday.
The rollout will be partial and completed before 30 October, as mandated by DGCA, the tweet said.
— DGCA (@DGCAIndia) October 1, 2019
In July this year, an Air India pilot was suspended for three months after he failed a pre-flight breath test. He was scheduled to fly from New Delhi to Bengaluru on 13 July.