Bengaluru (Rajeev Sharma): Passengers at Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport faced another difficult day on Monday, with IndiGo cancelling 127 flights amid ongoing operational chaos that has stretched into its seventh straight day. The disruptions included 62 outbound flights and 65 arrivals, according to an airport insider.
The prolonged crisis has prompted stepped-up intervention from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). On Sunday night, the regulator extended the deadline for IndiGo chief executive Pieter Elbers and chief operating officer Isidro Porqueras to respond to show-cause notices. Their replies are now due by 6 p.m. on Monday. The notices, issued a day earlier, accused the airline of significant failures in planning and resource management and demanded answers within 24 hours.
IndiGo has been under fire since December 2, when large-scale cancellations began nationwide. The carrier has attributed the chaos to the rollout of revised Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) rules, which it says created sudden scheduling challenges for pilot rosters. The new regulations, implemented in phases starting July and November, mandate longer rest periods and stricter night-flying limits—changes that domestic airlines initially resisted.
The Gurugram-headquartered airline, partly owned by Rahul Bhatia, faced public anger for staying largely silent during the early days of the meltdown. It was only after the airline cancelled an unprecedented 1,600 flights on Friday—believed to be the highest single-day cancellation count in Indian aviation history—that CEO Elbers issued a video apology. Though he acknowledged widespread disruption, he stopped short of disclosing the scale of cancellations for that day.
IndiGo earlier received temporary relaxations on the second phase of the new norms, which remain in place until February 10. The FDTL overhaul had originally been planned for March 2024 but was delayed at the request of multiple airlines, which said they needed time to add crew.
With thousands of passengers stranded in recent days, the government and regulators are closely tracking the airline’s operations. The DGCA’s next steps will depend heavily on the responses submitted by IndiGo’s top management, as pressure grows for the airline to restore stability to its network.
