In hindsight, the IndiGo meltdown was a nightmare waiting to happen. Alarm bells should have gone off in the first fortnight of November, when average cancellations went up from around 14 flights a day to 40. The numbers kept climbing until the entire system collapsed and, on a single day in December, over a thousand flights were cancelled.

Thousands of passengers were left stranded at airports, with no clarity on when they would be able to fly. Domestic passengers missed job interviews, weddings, funerals, hospital appointments and international connections. Foreign nationals missed their return flights.

In Pune, passengers had to wait inside the plane after landing because the pilot could not find a place to park. All parking bays were occupied by IndiGo aircraft. Passengers on a Patna-Delhi flight found themselves stranded in Bhubaneswar after their direct flight was cancelled. As ticket prices on other airlines soared, the government dragged its feet.

On 6 December, the ministry of civil aviation and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) ordered the capping of fares. John Brittas, Rajya Sabha MP, was quick to point out that the government had always claimed it could not intervene: there was no predatory pricing, airfares are demand-driven and no cartels exist. Had the government lied when it claimed to be helpless?

After failing to prevent the fiasco, the DGCA swung into damage control mode. On 9 December, it ordered IndiGo to curtail daily flights by 10 per cent, served a show-cause notice to the airline’s board and deputised officials to IndiGo offices and airports. It was a classic case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

The ministry even released a photograph of Dutch CEO Pieter Elbers at a meeting with Union aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu. Elbers’s gesture of hands folded in a ‘namaste’ was read as apology or supplication to the powers that be.

Nothing can fully explain the collapse of one of the more profitable airlines in India, which posted a net profit of Rs 7,500 crore in 2023–24, operated a fleet of 400 aircraft (double Air India’s) and ran as many as 2,200 flights a day. Significantly, Air India, which operates fewer flights, has more pilots — 6,350 as opposed to IndiGo’s 5,085. The DGCA knew all this but still allowed IndiGo to fly. It even approved an increase in the number of flights, especially night flights sought by the airline for the peak winter holiday season.

Carefully planted reports in the media suggest that the DGCA is demanding that heads roll. Some aviation experts suggest that the mop-up should start not with IndiGo but with........

© National Herald