IndiGo Chaos Reveals India’s Aviation Crisis

India Today

What started as an IndiGo rostering mess turned into a nationwide meltdown

Transcript

00:00Long queues outside airports, passengers arguing over cancellations, kids curled up,

00:04Indian aviation just took a massive hit after Indigo cancelled more than

00:081,000 flights following its new rostering rules.

00:11Delays shot up, ticket prices spiked, confusion exploded.

00:14But the big question remains, is Indigo really the only one to blame?

00:18What looked like Indigo's worst nightmare actually exposed how fragile

00:22India's aviation system has become.

00:24Before the 1991, the Air Corporations Act of 1953 gave two government airlines,

00:29Air India for international routes and Indian Airlines for domestic routes a strict monopoly.

00:34Private airlines were not allowed to run regular passenger flights.

00:38In 1991, liberalisation changed everything.

00:41The first wave of private airlines arrived in the early 1990s.

00:45East-West Airlines came first, followed by Jet Airways, The Maniac,

00:49Model Luft, Air Sahara later known as Sahara and NEPC.

00:52They broke Indian Airlines' monopoly and brought newer jets, better service and real competition.

00:58But most of them collapsed within the decade, crushed by weak financing,

01:01difficult regulations and cut-throat pricing.

01:04The 2000s brought another wave.

01:06Air Deccan in 2003, followed by SpiceJet, Indigo, Paramount, Air Costa,

01:11Air Pegasus, Air Orisha, Deccan 360 and Go first.

01:14But the story repeated.

01:16Air Deccan was sold to Kingfisher, which drowned itself in luxury, spending a debt of

01:20Rs 8,000 crore by 2012.

01:23According to media reports, several airlines including Jet Airways and Go Air have shut down

01:28and SpiceJet has more or less shut down too.

01:30Through all of this, Indigo kept expanding.

01:33It captured the market share left behind by airlines that went bankrupt or shrank.

01:37According to IATA reports,

01:39today, Indigo controls more than 60% of India's aviation market.

01:43The rest of the sector is struggling.

01:45The second-largest airline, Air India, posted a net loss of Rs 10,859 crores in financial year 2025.

01:52Akasa Air, the newest entrant, has not shaken up the market either

01:56and cannot absorb 10,000 of displaced passengers in a crisis.

02:00The Ministry of Civil Aviation got Rs 2,400.31 crores in 2025-2026 budget.

02:06Indigo's mass cancellations and the DGCA's rapid dilution of newly tightened pilot rest rules

02:11exposed a deeper system failure.

02:13Within days of enforcing stricter flight duty time limitation norms,

02:16the regulator rolled them back and gave Indigo special relaxations on weekly rest

02:21and night duty as passengers were stranded nationwide.

02:24This is why Indigo's problems quickly turned into a nationwide problem.

02:28India is on track to become the world's third-largest aviation market.

02:31Demand is high, but infrastructure is stretched.

02:34Fuel is expensive and airport slots are full.

02:37Smaller airlines operate on very thin margins and have limited room to grow.

02:41On paper, a duopoly looks stable.

02:44The events of the past week proved how brittle it really is.

02:47Because when even one of the two dominant airlines falters,

02:50passengers across the country feel it immediately.

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