At big airports like Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, passengers have to stand in queues for hours. Due to this, people are getting very angry on social media and the name of the company is being defamed. This great crisis of Indigo is not only emptying the pockets of passengers but is also shaking the aviation sector.
By the way, this trouble of Indigo had started from November itself. Last month alone the airline had to cancel 1230 flights. More than 300 cancellations have taken place in the first four days of December alone. Many reasons have come to light behind this chaos, in which things like severe shortage of crew, new duty time rules, technical glitches at major airports and winter peak traffic have increased its problems.
Where is Indigo’s wheel stuck?
The story of Indigo was once an example of success. This low-cost carrier, started in 2006, today holds 60% share in India’s domestic market. By 2025, the company will fly more than 2,000 daily flights, carrying more than 30 crore passengers. But everything changed from November this year. According to DGCA data, 65% of IndiGo flights were delayed in November, which led to more than 1,300 cancellations. Let us explore the roots of this crisis.
How did there be such a shortage of crew?
Why did the new rules become a problem?
The new phase of Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) aims to increase safety and reduce pilot fatigue. But IndiGo operates more than 2200 flights daily and does a large number of night operations. She could not prepare the roster as per the new rules.
The new rules required major changes in night landing, weekly rest and duty schedules. IndiGo’s scheduling systems are taking time to fully stabilize and this has had a direct impact on flights.
What kind of problems occur at big airports?
On Tuesday, due to glitches in the check-in and departure control systems at many major airports including Delhi and Pune, long queues formed and a large number of flights were delayed. The effect of this delay gradually spread throughout the network and the schedule got badly disturbed.
How did winter increase the problem?
Due to peak winter traffic, fog related problems and crowding at airports in metro cities, IndiGo could not resume flights on time. Even small delays in such dense scheduling have a big impact on the entire network.
According to government data, IndiGo’s on-time performance fell to just 35% on Tuesday, meaning more than 1,400 flights faced delays in a single day.
What are the new FDTL rules?
Strict provisions have been made in the new rules of DGCA to prevent fatigue of pilots. In this, the number of weekly mandatory rest time and night landing was reduced from 6 to 2. Apart from this, due to reduction in continuous duty period, the pilot’s flying time limit was also reduced to 8 hours per day, 35 hours per week, 125 hours per month and 1,000 hours per year. At the same time, it was made mandatory for the crew to take at least 10 hours of rest every 24 hours.
These rules are better in terms of safety, but the airline needs more pilots and a larger crew base. Indigo’s huge night network was most affected by this change.
Why aren’t other airlines so affected?
IndiGo operates the largest share of India’s domestic flights. Because of this, even a small disturbance becomes a big crisis. Apart from this, night flights of Air India, Vistara and Akasa are less as compared to Indigo. The new rules had more impact on Indigo.
At the same time, Indigo adopts the model of running maximum flights with the help of minimum crew. This model faltered as soon as the rules changed. Small airlines change schedules easily, but IndiGo’s network is so big that it is difficult to adjust immediately.
When will the situation improve?
IndiGo has said that it is making ‘calibrated adjustments’ and the situation is expected to return to normal within 48 hours. Airlines are redeploying crew, reducing night schedules and making pre-planned cancellations to avoid last-minute crises.
Apart from this, flight and crew rotation is being re-organised. The company has appealed to the passengers to continuously check the flight status.
Indigo issued a statement saying, ‘Technical glitches, winter schedule changes, bad weather, airport congestion and new crew rostering rules – all these have had a combined impact on our operations. For this we apologize to our customers.
