DGCA investigating widespread flight delays, cancellations at IndiGo; airline asked to submit mitigation plan

“The Directorate General of Civil Aviation is currently investigating the situation and evaluating measures along with the airline, to reduce cancellations and delays, in order to minimise inconvenience being caused to passengers. M/s. Indigo has been asked to report to DGCA, Headquarters, to present the facts leading to the current situation along with plans to mitigate the ongoing delays & cancellations,” the DGCA said in statement Wednesday night.

With the scale of disruption worsening on Tuesday and Wednesday with widespread delays and numerous cancellations across the IndiGo network, the airline has decided to initiate “calibrated adjustments” to its schedule. While IndiGo did not elaborate on these adjustments, which will be in place for 48 hours, sources indicated that it would involve rescheduling and cancellation of some flights to stabilise operations in line with crew availability. As per the DGCA, IndiGo is also strengthening crew planning and rostering while adhering to FDTL norms, enhancing coordination with air traffic control (ATC) and airports to manage capacity constraints, and improving its turnaround and disruption-management processes.

The new Flight Duty Time limitation (FDTL) norms, the second phase of which took effect last month, are being seen as the primary reason for IndiGo’s recent woes. As per the DGCA statement, IndiGo informed the regulator that it had 1,232 flight cancellations in November, 755 of which were due to crew and FDTL-related constraints, 258 were due to airspace and airport restrictions, 92 were due to air traffic control system failure incidents, while 127 were due to various other reasons. The airline’s on-time performance (OTP) also worsened in November to 67.7 per cent from 84.1 per cent in October. With the disruption worsening for IndiGo, its OTP has eroded further. Merely 35 per cent of the IndiGo flights operated on time on Tuesday, while the figure was around 50 per cent on Monday.

The new FDTL norms, under which the weekly rest period for pilots has been increased to 48 hours from 36 and night landings have been limited to two from six earlier, are learnt to have impacted IndiGo’s crew rostering significantly. The new norms have also extended the night hours by an hour, which has also imposed additional constraints on operations.

A champion of the low-cost carrier model, IndiGo’s aircraft and crew utilisation levels are higher than other Indian carriers. The airline also has more high-volume night-time flights than other carriers, which helps it keep its aircraft use high and efficient. These, combined with the size and scale of IndiGo’s operations, have made the airline a lot more susceptible to FDTL-related disruptions than other Indian airlines.

To be sure, none of the other airlines match IndiGo in the scale of operations, with the carrier having a dominant domestic market share of over 60 per cent. With its fleet of over 400 aircraft, the airline operates over 2,300 flights a day, connecting over 90 domestic and 45 international destinations.

Pilot associations blamed IndiGo for the disruptions, saying that the airline was ill-prepared for the new FDTL rules despite having sufficient notice. Airline Pilots’ Association of India (ALPA) said the flight disruptions reflected a failure of proactive resource planning by dominant airlines, adding that there could be an effort to pressurise the DGCA to dilute the new norms.

The Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) said that that the disruption is a direct consequence of IndiGo’s “prolonged and unorthodox lean manpower strategy across departments, particularly in flight operations”. It also claimed that there are growing concerns that the flight delays and cancellations may be used to “arm-twist regulators” whenever rules do not suit the airlines.