The government on Tuesday ordered IndiGo to reduce its schedule by at least 10 per cent, doubling the curtailment from 5 per cent that the aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had ordered following network-wide disruptions at the country’s largest airline, which led to scores of flights cancellations on a daily basis since the middle of last week. The decision was communicated by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) in a meeting with IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers.
IndiGo is India’s largest airline with a domestic market share of nearly 65 per cent, and its schedule has over 2,300 daily flights, around 2,150 of which are domestic flights. A 10 per cent curtailment in domestic flights would mean that the airline’s daily scheduled domestic flights would come down to less than 1,950. According to sources, the freed-up slots may be offered to other carriers if they have additional capacity that can be deployed.
“The Ministry considers it necessary to curtail the overall Indigo routes, which will help in stabilizing the airline’s operations and lead to reduced cancellations. A curtailment of 10% has been ordered. While abiding with it, Indigo will continue to cover all its destinations as before,” Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said Tuesday in a post on social media platform X. Naidu said that Elbers was “summoned” to the ministry to provide an update on the airline’s stabilisation measures.
“During the last week, many passengers faced severe inconvenience due to Indigo’s internal mismanagement of crew rosters, flight schedules and inadequate communication. While the enquiry and necessary actions are underway, another meeting with Indigo’s top management was held to review the stabilization measures. Today again, @IndiGo6E CEO Pieter Elbers was summoned to the Ministry to provide an update. He confirmed that 100% of the refunds for flights affected till 6th December have been completed. A strict instruction to expedite the completion of the remaining refunds and baggage handover was given,” Naidu said.
In a statement, earlier today, IndiGo announced that its operations have stabilised and normalised. IndiGo operated over 1,800 flights on Tuesday, operating to all destinations on its network, and its on-time performance (OTP) is back at over 80 per cent. The airline expects to operate around 1,900 flights on Wednesday. Sources close to the airline said that IndiGo was looking to gradually increase its flights to its regular levels over the next few days. But it will now have to abide by the schedule curtailment ordered by the government.
Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu posted a photo of his meeting with IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers (left).
“IndiGo can confirm that after days of significant and steady improvement across the network, we have reinstated our operations across our network. This means all flights published on our website are scheduled to operate with an adjusted network. Also, nearly all bags that were stuck at airports have been delivered to our customers and the teams are working on delivering the remaining at the earliest,” IndiGo said in a statement before the MoCA’a 10 per cent schedule curtailment decision was announced.
Earlier the DGCA had ordered the curtailment of IndiGo’s flight schedule by 5 per cent, or around 110-115 daily flights, especially on high-demand and high-frequency routes. IndiGo was directed by the regulator to submit the revised and truncated schedule by 5 pm on Wednesday (December 10). A further rationalisation of IndiGo’s flight schedule could be on the cards and will depend on IndiGo’s daily flight operations, sources indicated. Following the announcement from MoCA, the DGCA revised its order to IndiGo to reflect 10 per cent curtailment.
Story continues below this ad
The airline’s weekly domestic flights had increased to 15,014 in the winter schedule, which took effect from October 26, from 14,158 weekly flights in this year’s summer schedule. IndiGo, however, faced crew shortages, primarily due to its inadequate preparation for the second phase of the new crew rest and duty norms that took effect on November 1. This led to widespread network-wide disruption in the airline’s operations. In view of the disruption, which brought India’s aviation ecosystem to its knees, pilot associations and aviation experts strongly criticised and questioned the DGCA’s earlier decision to allow an increase in flights in the airline’s winter schedule.
The new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules stipulate more rest for pilots and rationalisation of their flying duties—particularly late night operations—in a bid to better manage pilot fatigue, which is a key risk to aviation safety. These new norms, which were stipulated in January last year were delayed in their implementation, and took effect in two phase—from July 1 and November 1—with the second phase rollout hitting IndiGo considerably. The new norms meant that airlines either had to have more pilots to maintain their schedule, or curtail their schedules in line with the new requirements.
With the second phase of new FDTL norms taking effect on November 1, IndiGo started feeling the heat with a higher-than-usual number of cancellations and flight delays throughout November. As the delays compounded, with a few other external factors also playing a role, disruptions became widespread over the past few days. According to the DGCA, IndiGo informed the regulator that it had 1,232 flight cancellations in November, 755 of which were due to crew and FDTL-related constraints.
In review meetings, IndiGo also accepted that that the disruptions “have arisen primarily from misjudgement and planning gaps in implementing” the second phase of new FDTL rules, with the airline saying that the actual crew requirement for the new rules exceeded what it had anticipated, as per the DGCA.
Story continues below this ad
The massive disruption at IndiGo threw commercial flight operations out of gear all over the country. Given the scale of the disruption, the DGCA on Friday granted IndiGo a temporary one-time exemption from some night operations-related changes in the new FDTL norms for its Airbus A320 pilots. The temporary rollback, which will be in place till February 10, is likely to help IndiGo to get its act together and stabilise operations from heron. The DGCA has also granted a few other temporary relaxations to IndiGo.
But the government and the regulator have turned up the heat on IndiGo with the initiation of an inquiry by a DGCA panel into the disruption. The regulator also issued show cause notices to the airline’s chief executive officer Pieter Elbers and its chief operating officer Isidre Porqueras. Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu has blamed lapses on IndiGo’s part for the disruption and said that strict action will be taken on the basis of the inquiry report to “set an example”. He said that sufficient notice was given by the DGCA to all airlines for the implementation of the new FDTL rules.
In response to show-cause notices issued by the DGCA to IndiGo’s chief executive officer Pieter Elbers and chief operating officer Isidre Porqueras, the airline said that it is realistically not possible to pinpoint the exact cause or causes of the disruption at this stage due to the to the complexity and vast scale of operations, and a comprehensive root cause analysis is being done. But it did share some preliminary contributing factors, whose combination led to the disruption.
“The airline suggests that the disruption resulted from a combination of the following factors, which coincided in lesser or greater measure: 1. Minor technical glitches. 2. Schedule changes linked to the start of the winter season. 3. Adverse weather conditions. 4. Increased congestion in the aviation system. 5. Implementation of and operation under the updated crew rostering rules,” the DGCA had said in a release Monday evening.
Story continues below this ad
“IndiGo notes they had been engaging with the DGCA regarding challenges in implementing the Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) Phase II and were seeking variations, exemptions, or extensions. The disruptions began in early December when the compounding factors resulted in a lower On-Time Network Performance, which affected crew availability,” the regulator said, adding that it is in the process of examining IndiGo’s response and “appropriate action as deemed appropriate will be taken in due course”, the regulator had said.
