IndiGo Under Pressure After Flight Disruptions

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00:00And staying with India, Indian airports in turmoil of the country's largest airline cancelled more than 2,000 flights in just days.

00:09Long queues, stranded families and freight tempers have become the norm at major hubs across the country.

00:16Indian regulators have ordered the CEO of Indigo to explain the severe disruptions which began last Tuesday.

00:22Let's get perspective. Vandana Singh, chairperson at the Federation of Aviation Industry in India.

00:28Vandana, what's your take? I mean, what went wrong with Indigo?

00:33Thank you, Haslinda, for having me on your show.

00:38Firstly, looking at what went wrong, let's just go and break it down and go a little bit back into the background.

00:45The airlines, the Indian airlines, all of the Indian carriers have had almost about two years to comply with the new FDTL norms,

00:56flight duty time limitations that we call.

01:00Now, these are going in tandem, in line with the ICAO account norms, which is the International Civil Aviation Organization,

01:09which is basically addressing fatigues, fatigue, pilot fatigue.

01:15And this is not specifically India. It's all over the world.

01:21All the carriers have been advised to address pilot fatigue.

01:26Now, here in India, the rest hours were 36 hours for the pilots.

01:33And as per the new FDTL norms, they were to be 48 hours for the pilots, plus the leave, right?

01:44And the new FDTL norms kicking in, at first, when the announcements were made last January

01:53and the implementation was to happen in July of 2024, then obviously the carriers were not prepared.

02:01There was a court case in which it was clearly advised that the implementation will happen from July of this year, which is 2025.

02:11Having said that, the airlines had enough time to build up on their shortages, to comply with the norms, the regulations,

02:22as per the aviation laws of our country.

02:25The mandate was clear from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation,

02:30clearly given, and the draft was clear for them to be seen even as of last year.

02:36The problem started with Indigo because the second phase that kicked in, first phase was 1st of July this year,

02:45and the extension happened to November of this year.

02:48Second phase was the deadline given by the court.

02:51So when 1st November came in, obviously Indigo, with its dominant share in our Indian market at 62% to 65%,

03:03was not ready with their pilots, had not the trained 1st officers and the pilots needed for this,

03:14specifically the winter season right now.

03:16As we know, it started on October 26th, 2025, and will carry on to 31st March, 2026.

03:25Not just that.

03:26But Vandana, Indian Airlines had 20 months to comply.

03:33We've had the likes of SpiceJet, Akasa, you know, being able to comply.

03:39How much of this has to do with perhaps Indigo's aggressive expansion plan that is unable to comply with the new rules?

03:48That is true, ma'am.

03:50You're saying that Indigo basically has had very aggressive growth plans,

03:56especially for the night flight landing.

03:59So eight flights were brought down to two as per the new FDTL norms.

04:05That also was affecting them.

04:07But the question here is that the response has to go now to the show cause notice by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation,

04:15and they have to respond.

04:16They have an extension to respond by 6 p.m. tomorrow evening.

04:21A failing which action can be taken by the government as to why, you know, everything came to, as you said,

04:29everything snowballed or there was a proper meltdown.

04:33And why couldn't Indigo manage things in a disciplined and a proper manner?

04:37Having said that, yesterday was day seven.

04:40Today is new week, day one.

04:42And I assume everything to get back into place by 10 to 15th, 10 to 15th of December.

04:50And I do expect that the new regulation that has the extension given to 10th of February 2026,

04:59that things will be in order.

05:01But Indigo definitely will be taken to task by our government.

05:05Definitely, definitely goes without saying.

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