By the numbers
The most expensive mistake in DGCA prep: booking an exam you don't show up for
More than 18,000 booked papers were never written across 2024 to early 2026. Here's which papers students skip the most, and how to never donate an exam fee again.
Aryan · Founder, Ready Aviator·14 June 2026·3 min read
There’s one result on the DGCA sheets that costs money and teaches nothing: absent. We counted every booked paper that was never written, and the total is large enough to deserve its own article.
The quietest line on the result sheet
Between January 2024 and April 2026, more than 18,000 booked papers were marked absent. Every one of those is a paid booking, often a journey planned and leave taken, with no answer sheet at the end of it.
18,088
Which papers students skip the most
The no-show rate isn’t spread evenly. Look where it climbs.
Out of every 100 booked papers, how many are never written
Marked absent on the published result sheets, 2024 – April 2026
The two papers students fear most, Radio Aids and Air Navigation, sit right at the top, and that's the pattern: people skip the papers that scare them, not the ones they forget. (RTR shows a high rate too, but on a single session of data, so treat it as noise.) A booking made in a confident week meets an exam date in a less confident one, and the seat stays empty.
The fix costs nothing
Book the session when your prep plan says you’ll be ready, not when the booking window opens and everyone else is rushing in. If the date is three weeks out and the mock scores say you’re not there, an empty seat saves you nothing: the fee is spent either way, so walk in and take the real rehearsal. The students who clear fastest treat every booked date as fixed and build the prep backwards from it.
A skipped sitting still costs you the months until the next session, and months are the most expensive thing on this road. Confidence on exam day is buildable: it’s called preparation that actually matches the paper.