IndiGo crisis a result of gross mismanagement, says civil aviation minister Naidu
Naidu called the situation “shocking” and said the ministry was not relying on the airline’s explanations and was conducting its own inquiry through DGCA
NEW DELHI: The Union government appeared to harden its stance against embattled airline IndiGo on Thursday as civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu blamed the airline’s “gross mismanagement” and issues with the crew rostering system for the scheduling meltdown that affected millions of flyers this month.
The comments came on a day IndiGo chief executive officer Pieter Elbers appeared before the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and was asked to come back on Friday before the regulator’s four-member committee.
After 10 days of scrapped flights, stranded passengers, and airports overflowing with misdirected pieces of baggage, cancellations continued on Thursday, with the airline cancelling 200 pre-planned flights and 60 more at airports, despite assurances to the contrary from the carrier and the government.
“The crisis was a result of gross mismanagement by IndiGo only. There were some issues with their internal crew rostering system, which could have been avoided in compliance with the new norms under the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) guidelines, which unfortunately did not happen,” Naidu told news channel India Today at the Agenda AajTak programme.
The minister also called the situation “shocking” and said the ministry was not relying on the airline’s explanations and was conducting its own inquiry through DGCA. “Why were IndiGo’s pilots on a freeze for the past six months? Six months, no pilot hiring,” he said, according to the India Today transcript of the programme.
HT reported earlier this week on data presented in Parliament that showed how far the airline had stretched its self-touted lean operations structure –– IndiGo’s pilot strength saw a 7% reduction between March and December even as the airline was scheduled to fly 6% more flights in the winter season compared to the summer schedule.
Also Read: Airline should’ve planned well, prepared for mandate, says Ram Mohan Naidu | HT interview
For decades, the low-cost carrier that controls 65% of India’s domestic aviation market relied on aggressive scheduling and maximum night-flight utilisation -- a business model that collapsed when new safety regulations increased the mandatory weekly rest period for pilots. The crisis became apparent on December 2, when IndiGo, which prides itself on its heady on-time performance numbers, cancelled over 100 of its 2,300-odd flights. Between then and December 9, the airline cancelled an estimated 5,500 flights and delayed much of the rest. These were largely domestic flights as its international operations remained relatively unscathed.
People scrambled to reschedule their flights, struggled to get refunds and find their luggage as the airline stonewalled passengers and offered little transparency. As the turbulence deepened, the ministry and regulator also came under fire for not doing enough to mitigate the crisis.
On December 5, DGCA exempted Indigo’s Airbus A320 fleet from certain rules on pilot duty hours at night and allowed IndiGo to call back pilots deputed elsewhere for flying duties. Separately, it withdrew a rule that prevented airlines from counting pilot leave as weekly rest to meet flying duty norms. Still, the disruptions continued unabated. The move was criticised by pilots and experts who said that this would compromise safety, which was the primary motivation for such rules. The regulator insisted the exemption was granted “solely to facilitate operational stabilisation and in no way amounts to dilution of safety requirements”.
As the ministry and the regulator came under fire, DGCA on Wednesday installed officers at IndiGo’s corporate office and airports to oversee and report on the airline’s flailing operations. An eight-member team of senior flight operations inspectors will scrutinise IndiGo total fleet, the number of pilots, network details and crew utilisation. A two-member team, also deployed at IndiGo’s corporate office, will monitor the status of cancellations, on-time performance, refunds and baggage returns to fliers.
The government also trimmed the airline’s winter schedule by 10% on Tuesday.
“We wish to inform you that Mr. Pieter Elbers, CEO of the company, has been asked to appear on December 12, 2025, before the committee of officers at Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which is examining the matter relating to flight disruptions,” the airline said in a regulatory filing.
Elbers spent more than an hour at DGCA on Wednesday, officials aware of the development said. “Apart from the meeting held with the CEO, DGCA also conducted a meeting with other airlines,” an official said.
“The airlines presented a detailed explanation of how they would be able to handle the additional operations (reduced from IndiGo’s),” he said.
A second official said that DGCA is likely to make a decision on the slot allocation “in a couple of days.”
The airline, meanwhile, announced compensation to passengers who were stranded, and booked their travel between December 3 and 5 in the form of travel vouchers of Rs.10,000. These vouchers, it said, will remain valid for 12 months.
The compensation, IndiGo clarified, is in addition to the commitment under the existing government guidelines.
“IndiGo regrettably acknowledges that part of our customers travelling on 3/4/5 December 2025 were stranded for many hours at certain airports and a number of them were severely impacted due to congestion. We will offer travel vouchers worth INR 10,000 to such severely impacted customers. These travel vouchers can be used for any future IndiGo journey for the next 12 months,” the airline spokesperson said.
“If the booking was made through a travel partner platform, the necessary actions for your refund have also been initiated. As we may not have your complete details in our system, we request you to write to us at customer experience@goindien in so we can continue to assist you promptly,” it added.
