The IndiGo fiasco may not exactly turn out to be the Erin Brockovich moment for Indian consumer rights, but anger against the airline’s massive delays and cancellations in the last few days, and to top it, the intransigence and lack of transparency of its leadership, is a fit case for people’s action.

India, unlike the US, does not have class action lawsuits where a large number of people with a common grievance take powerful corporations to court. But it still has some equivalent of it and enough teeth to get consumers justice as a large aggrieved group.

But let us first examine the issue at hand.

IndiGo does not even have a fig leaf in this staggering system collapse. The entire Indian airline industry, including IndiGo — their CEOs and board of directors — were notified about the Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) by the Director General of Civil Aviation in January 2024. Other airlines made arrangements from their idle capacity of staff and complied with the new sleep and rest requisites of pilots and crew.

But IndiGo kept running its tight, borderline-exploitative ship, and till the end, it refused to comply with the new, internationally pushed safety regulations.

The Ministry of Civil........

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