New Delhi, : India’s aviation industry is facing its worst disruption in years as IndiGo, the country’s largest airline, has cancelled more than 4,000 flights since December 2. The cascading operational meltdown has stranded tens of thousands of passengers and paralyzed major airports including Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.
The chaos stems from a severe pilot shortage, triggered by the rollout of stricter Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules on December 1. The updated regulations cap weekly flying hours to mitigate fatigue but caught airlines—especially IndiGo—grossly unprepared.
Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu has ordered IndiGo to cut operations by 10% with immediate effect. The airline announced ₹10,000 travel vouchers for severely impacted passengers, while CEO Pieter Elbers personally visited DGCA headquarters to apologize.
Elbers acknowledged that the crisis was worsened by “short-sighted planning,” including hiring freezes and no-poaching agreements within the industry.
The Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), led by Rahul Sinha, blamed IndiGo for “cartel-like behavior” that kept pilot wages suppressed despite rising workload—contributing to the current exodus.
Passengers have shared harrowing stories as the crisis ripples across the country. Anjali Mehta, an IT professional from Hyderabad, described how her family missed a wedding after being rerouted multiple times. “We lost money, time, and a moment we can’t get back,” she said.
The DGCA fined IndiGo ₹5 crore and mandated emergency audits of crew rostering across all airlines to prevent similar breakdowns. Airfares on rival carriers have jumped 20–30%, further straining the ₹2 lakh crore aviation sector during peak winter travel.
The shockwaves extend beyond passenger travel. E-commerce giants, including Amazon, have reported delayed shipments worth nearly ₹500 crore, disrupting logistics and retail operations nationwide.
Opposition parties, led by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, have demanded a parliamentary inquiry, calling the crisis a “BJP-era failure in aviation infrastructure and workforce planning.”
As IndiGo moves to recruit 1,000 foreign pilots, experts caution that without structural reforms and workforce upskilling, the sector could face recurrent disruptions. The episode has renewed demands from passenger rights groups for mandatory travel insurance against operational breakdowns.
