IndiGo ops getting stable gradually; over 1,800 flights being operated on Monday, cancellations fall

On Sunday, IndiGo had operated just over 1,650 flights, up from 1,500 on Saturday, and more than double of Friday’s around 700 flights, when cancellations were “well over 1,000”. Friday was the worst day in IndiGo’s network-wide disruption this week, as the airline had decided to “reboot the network, systems, and rosters” to mitigate the widespread delays and flight cancellations. Its OTP was 78.2 per cent on Sunday, up sharply from 20.7 per cent on Saturday, and Friday’s all-time low of 3.7 per cent, as per data from the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA).

The primary reason for this disruption is crew shortages in the wake of the new (FDTL) rules, which IndiGo did not plan for properly. As per the DGCA, IndiGo informed it that the disruptions “have arisen primarily from misjudgement and planning gaps in implementing” the second phase of new FDTL rules, with the airline accepting that the actual crew requirement for the new rules exceeded what it had anticipated.

The massive disruption at IndiGo—India’s largest airline that commands over 60 per cent of the domestic market share—threw commercial flight operations out of gear all over the country. Given the scale of the disruption, aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (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—caught grossly unprepared for the new crew rest norms—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 has 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 an update shared on social media platform X on Monday, the airline said that its board has been meeting regularly since the crisis began, and the CMG—set up on December 4 with five members—meets every day to closely monitor all matters relating to the current disruption. In view of IndiGo’s network-wide disruption, there have been questions from various quarters on the effectiveness of the company’s high-profile board. The CMG includes four board members—chairman Vikram Singh Mehta, directors Gregg Saretsky, Mike Whitaker, and Amitabh Kant—and Elbers.

Although the new FDTL rules apply to all domestic airlines, IndiGo has been the most severely-affected carrier. The factors that have made IndiGo more vulnerable, according to industry sources, include its massive scale of operations, a high-frequency network, significant number of night and wee hour flights, and high aircraft and crew utilisation levels with hardly any buffers, leaving little elbow room for the airline to manage crew shortages. With its fleet of over 400 aircraft, IndiGo operates over 2,300 flights a day. By contrast, the next biggest airline group—Air India—operates less than half the number of flights IndiGo operates.

“We would like to reiterate that all our operations are fully compliant with the relevant FDTL norms and safety regulations, as they have been throughout the last two decades. We continue to work in full cooperation with the authorities to restore normalcy in operations,” the IndiGo spokesperson said Monday.