Turbulence in India's civil aviation sector as IndiGo battles management issues

Chaos continues to reign supreme at airports across India from 3 December as private carrier IndiGo, the largest carrier accounting for over 60% of domestic passenger traffic, cancelled hundreds of its flights, leaving passengers stranded and casting a shadow on the world's third largest domestic aviation market with an estimated 16.1 crore people flying within the country in 2024.

The cancellations rose sharply compared to the start of the week. On Wednesday, IndiGo cancelled a total of 55 flights due to mounting crew shortages and network-wide schedule strain. 

The situation worsened on Thursday, with airport officials estimating 100 to 118 cancellations through the day as the airline struggled to stabilize duty rosters under the revised Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) norms which restrict duty hours for pilots and cabin crew.

The passengers took to social media venting their anger over long delays and cancellations. Many also complained that they had to take expensive flights with other carriers due to the disruption. Fares have soared. 

The only Mumbai-Delhi flight available for Friday was quoting a fare of Rs 51,860 per passenger while the sole Delhi-Mumbai flight was showing seat availability at Rs 48,972 as against normal economy class ticket price of around Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000. This forced the government to impose a fare cap.

According to officials, the revised FDTL rules hit IndiGo's rostering and created a shortage of crew across key sectors. This has led to a cascading effect on aircraft schedules, particularly on high-density routes such as Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai.

The new FDTL rules apply to all domestic airlines. IndiGo was the worst hit compared to other carriers because of its huge scale of operations particularly on some of the busiest routes, several late night and wee hour flights. With a fleet of over 400 planes, IndiGo operates over 2,300 flights a day to more than 90 domestic and 45 international destinations.

Under the new FDTL rules, the weekly rest period for pilots has been increased to 48 hours from 36 and night landings have been limited to two from six earlier. The updated rules are aimed at better combating pilot fatigue, a key risk in aviation safety.

These rules were initially going to be implemented from June 2024 but the rollback was delayed following pushback from IndiGo and other airlines. The airlines' primary argument was that the new norms would require more crew strength and they wanted the implementation in a calibrated manner However, the rules went into force this year following a direction from the Delhi High Court.

On Friday, the Ministry of Civil Aviation stepped into putting FDTL rules in abeyance with immediate effect. The Ministry also decided to institute a high-level inquiry into Indigo flight disruptions to examine what went wrong at Indigo, determine accountability and recommend measures to prevent similar disruptions in the future.

Will putting on hold the FDTL rules jeopardize the health of pilots and cabin crew and consequently the passengers? Airline Pilots Association of India President Sam Thomas said in a statement on Friday "granting continuous or unwarranted exemptions to FDTL norms would compromise passenger and crew safety as the entire purpose of the new norms is to reduce pilot fatigue."

He said the flight cancellations across India raises significant questions about IndiGo's management, regulatory oversight by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation."

However, the Civil Aviation Ministry insists that the decision to keep in abeyance FDTL rules has been taken "solely in the interest of passengers, especially senior citizens, students, patients, and others who rely on timely air travel for essential needs without compromising air safety."

The implementation of FDTL rules raise serious questions about the management of IndiGo. The rules were first notified in January last year and went into force on November 1 this year. IndiGo has now acknowledged it did not plan adequately for these changes and thus faced pilot and crew shortages, which have led to the flight disruptions. The question being asked is: how can India's biggest airline and the market leader fail to plan for such a change despite being given a full 12 months?

The question being raised: is IndiGo' exploiting its dominant position to give passengers a short shrift due to lack of options?  India needs to attract more airlines to fly in order to ensure better competition.

Monopoly is not going to help India's bid to make civil aviation a key driver of the economy.  Over the past decade, domestic air passenger traffic in India has grown 10-12% annually, according to official data. By 2040, this traffic is expected to grow six-fold to around 1.1 billion. 

This calls for more carriers to be in the market, particularly when the government projected India's commercial airline fleet to grow from 400 in 2014 to around 2,359 in March 2040. The number of airports has increased from 74 in 2014 to 163 in 2025 and the government plans to increase the number to 350-400 by then.