IndiGo regulatory capture is not a slogan. It is a description of how power really works in Indian aviation today.

In early December, India watched its largest airline unravel in real time. Flights vanished from departure boards. Passengers slept on airport floors. Students missed exams, patients missed appointments, workers missed job interviews and weddings. Call centres looped, apps showed “operational reasons”, and the standard promise was: “Refund as per DGCA rules.”

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At the heart of this slow-motion crash was IndiGo, the country’s dominant airline. Standing behind it were two institutions meant to protect the public: the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA).

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This was not just one carrier’s “internal mess”. It exposed a deeper structure:

Beneath the surface, India is also quietly redesigning how pilots are trained and work, through the Multi-Crew Pilot Licence (MPL) and a highly flexible Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS). In the wrong governance environment, these become tools that hard-wire airline control from classroom to cockpit.

This is the story of how power in Indian aviation is being rearranged, and what must happen next.

Architecture of Control

The immediate trigger was Phase 2 of new Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) – the rules that limit how long pilots can work and how much rest they must get.

These updated rules, implemented in stages, were meant to reduce fatigue and bring India closer to international best practice. They tightened definitions of night duty, increased weekly rest, and limited the number of landings and consecutive night duties.

On paper, everyone knew this was coming. Airlines were consulted, schemes were submitted, and approvals were granted. By 1 November, Phase 2 was in effect.

Within weeks:

Publicly, the Civil Aviation Minister said there were cancellations in November but that operations “stabilised” later in the month. He then admitted that on 1 December IndiGo and DGCA met the ministry to “seek clarifications” on the new FDTL norms, and “all clarifications were given”.

Soon after, the system collapsed.

Obvious questions arise:

Those questions sit at the core of IndiGo’s regulatory capture.

To understand the scale of IndiGo regulatory capture, you have to see beyond a single wave of cancellations.

On many domestic routes and time bands, IndiGo is not just another airline. It is the airline:

In that position, when IndiGo publishes an ambitious schedule and sells heavily, it shapes the entire market:

When that assumption fails, the damage is systemic.

The same pattern is emerging where pilots are produced.

IndiGo runs multiple branded cadet pilot programmes with selected training partners. These are........

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