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IndiGo meltdown: Humpty Dumpty’s Fall
All The King’s Horses, All the King’s Men And Their Actions
As the IndiGo airlines crisis abates, the unfolding events and actions (or the lack of the same) by the government and the airline have got curiouser and curiouser .
Revisiting the factors that led to the crisis that brought India’s aviation sector to its knees in early December makes sense -- especially since many are still fuzzy about this. Here is what really happened, based on information from people in IndiGo, other airlines, and the government.
IndiGo drew up its plans for the winter schedule with a total of 301 A320 aircraft and 44 ATRs available for use. The total available crew for the A320s was 2357 pilots in command (and 2194 first officers) and for the ATRs it was 284 (and 275). There were no cancellations on ATRs. Dividing the total crew by aircraft leads to an availability of 15.1 for IndiGo’s A320 fleet.
This compares with AIX's (Air India Express) 17.4, Akasa's 25.3 (the airline has hired in advance as it is adding aircraft every month and needs ready-to-fly crew) and SpiceJet's 19.04. The numbers indicate that while IndiGo’s expectations from its crew are definitely higher than others, they are not wildly different. Further, the carrier is adding over 1000 pilots in 2026, most of whom have already been shortlisted. The crisis was therefore, not led primarily by an acute shortage of crew (although the airline was cutting it fine) but by other factors.
According to people across airlines, IndiGo’s closest rival Air India Express pilots were flying around 60 hours on an average per month, which with the new rest norms , comes down to around 58. Akasa pilots are flying anywhere between 55 to 70 hours a month on an average (the airline has a large number of trainees who fly closer to 20 hours a month) and SpiceJet pilots (400 for 21 dry lease aircraft) are in fact flying the maximum currently at around 65 hours a month. IndiGo pilots were averaging around 58 hours a month (although duty hours which include travelling time to airport takes it higher) and by pushing it up to around 60, the airline was hoping it could manage the proposed winter schedule.
With the benefit of hindsight, a senior airline official admits that the head count could have been planned a bit better, keeping in mind the new rest and flying duty hours regime but there was no “glaring” shortage either. IndiGo was simply keeping it tight as it always tends to do. This also means that it is not fair to hold the director general for civil aviation (DGCA) liable for clearing the winter schedule : as things stood, there was no evident shortage of crew.
On November 1, the rest of the clauses in the new flight duty timing limitations (FDTL) kicked in. IndiGo could have prepared for it by building some slack in the system, but this is antithetical to the airline's DNA. But there were other factors at play as well, errors of both omission and commision.
The airline, according to people familiar with how the situation unravelled, reconfigured its rostering software late and did not test it adequately with the new rest guidelines in place. While some hiccups were noticeable through November, there was a domino effect that built up and by December 4-5, the whole system collapsed. Pilots who were not available at their home bases were rostered to fly from there. The flight cancellations further exacerbated the situation as pilots who were supposed to move from one base to another couldn’t be moved as their flights were cancelled too. Remedial actions were not taken in time to move them to other carriers.
Making matters worse was a leadership vacuum. Three key personnel - the senior vice president of the operations control center Jason Herter, the chief operating officer, Isidre Porqueras, and the CEO, Pieter Elbers all happened to be out of the country at the same time. Had the airline’s founder, Rahul Bhatia been in India, things might have been different but he too was out of the country and has remained conspicuous by his absence through this crisis. By the time the key decision makers and those in charge returned, the situation had exploded and the airline, imploded.
This embarrassing episode played out as the Indian government was hosting the Russian president, taking the spotlight off the visit while revealing gaping holes in the Viksit Bharat narrative. In what can only be explained as an emotional outburst India’s aviation minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu made two statements: one, he said he’d get the CEO of the airline removed if need be (in truth, this is beyond his remit) and two, he said he’d lost seven days of sleep thanks to the IndiGo crisis, prompting the question of whether he’d been in a similar predicament in June post the AI171 crash when 260 lives were lost!
In the absence of any other target, public ire was directed yet again against the safety regulator DGCA which was pulled in to tackle the crisis that arose from the delays and cancellations although these posed no direct threat to passenger lives and safety. An afterthought worth contemplating is that if this episode had unfolded at the same time as a tragedy of the magnitude witnessed in June, DGCA would have had to display superhuman abilities in tackling both simultaneously.
Faced yet again with an untenable situation of keeping the whole edifice intact while affixing blame and assuaging angry fliers, DGCA in an unprecedented action set up a dedicated oversight team at IndiGo’s corporate office in Gurugram to monitor key operational areas, including fleet strength, crew availability, utilisation hours, unplanned leaves, and standby crew for both cockpit and cabin staff. Two members were to be stationed at the airline’s office on a daily rotational basis and another two would keep track of daily cancellations, refund processing, on-time performance, passenger compensation, and baggage delivery.
Further, DGCA suspended four flight operations inspectors (FOIs) who were in charge of tracking IndiGo at the regulator’s end who claimed to be unaware that they were required to monitor crew availability and rostering practices, although their duty manual stipulates it.
Investigations will reveal whether these FOIs were in collusion or neglectful of their duties -- or whether, as some posts on social media have claimed, they are scapegoats. Calls for removal of the incumbent chief of DGCA, Faiz Ahmed Kidwai -- he took charge this January and has already tackled two major crises , the June crash and now this have also been made, although some analysts believe this is unfair. After all, t is the institution and the system that needs fixing, not individuals.
Meanwhile, “wooden and unfeeling” (as described by many) apologies issued on video by the airline’s CEO Pieter Elbers fell on deaf and unforgiving ears and failed to elicit any goodwill for a company whose true reprimand came in the form of a steep fall in its stock. The crisis revealed the inadequacies of the board which swung into action ex-post and brought in an independent expert to review the operational disruption and the contributing factors, raising the question in the industry of what an outside expert would tell the board that the top management can’t.
Some analysts dismissed the move as a “tactical eyewash” to appease observers, shareholders and investors than substantive action to apportion blame and hold those responsible accountable. The radio silence from its founder Rahul Bhatia in the company’s moment of need too has not gone down too well with the sector and market observers. Comparisons with and calls for involvement of the now estranged co-founder Rakesh Gangwal gained ground among all stakeholders.
As with all such crises, the most overlooked aspect remained the hapless passengers. IndiGo offered a paltry sum of ₹10,000 to those impacted , which most dismissed as a joke. Crew and even other employees, fliers and industry executives expressed the view that a stiff financial penalty is the only language that the company understands and that the authorities should not balk from charging a sum that truly hurts. While weddings, celebrations and other leisure travellers might have lost large sums in monetary terms, many who could not make it in time for a loved one’s funeral or prayer meeting in another city suffered irreparably. It’s a price paid for living with a system that’s compromised.
At a macro level, the minister and his cabinet colleagues need to put their collective minds to find ways of breaking IndiGo’s hegemony in a sector as critical as aviation. Lessons are available from instances not only in India but globally. With a crash and a collapse, 2025 has truly been annus horribilis for Indian aviation. Perhaps 2026 will be better.
