Airports in chaos as IndiGo cancels hundreds of flights; DGCA steps in

NEW DELHI: Air travel across India remained in chaos for a fourth straight day on Friday as IndiGo, the country's largest airline, scrapped around 500 flights, including all departures from New Delhi, leaving thousands of passengers stranded for several hours at a stretch with little clarity on alternatives.

The crisis, sparked after IndiGo -- which controls about two-thirds of India's domestic traffic -- failed to plan for new pilot flying-time regulations, leaving travellers missing everything from wedding receptions to job interviews and onward international connections.

As anger mounted and Opposition parties attacked the government for doing nothing, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stepped in to grant IndiGo temporary exemption from stricter night duty rules for pilots.

The crisis at IndiGo stems from new regulations that boost pilots' weekly rest requirements by 12 hours to 48 and allowed only two night-time landings per week, down from six. IndiGo has attributed the mass cancellations to "misjudgment and planning gaps".

On Friday, Delhi airport announced all IndiGo departures for the day -- around 235 flights -- were cancelled. Chennai airport similarly halted all departures to major metro destinations until 6 pm.

IndiGo cancelled 104 flights in Mumbai, 102 in Bengaluru, and 92 in Hyderabad, airport sources said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi blamed the IndiGo "fiasco" to the BJP-led government's "monopoly model" and asserted that India deserves fair competition in every sector, not "match-fixing monopolies".

"IndiGo fiasco is the cost of this government's monopoly model. Once again, it's ordinary Indians who pay the price -- in delays, cancellations and helplessness," the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha said in a post on X.

The issue has figured in Parliament as well.

After three days of chaos across airports, Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu said in a statement, "We anticipate that complete restoration of services will be achieved within the next three days. With initiation of various operational steps, flight schedules are expected to return to normal by tomorrow (Saturday)."

"Keeping new flight duty norms in abeyance, taking other operational steps to help normalise operations. The government has ordered a high-level inquiry to determine reasons, accountability for IndiGo flight disruptions," he said.

Easing flight duty norms, the DGCA allowed substitution of leaves with a weekly rest period.

IndiGo's on-time performance plummeted to 8.5 per cent on Thursday, with worsening operational disruptions impacting flight schedules.

The country's largest airline, which generally operates around 2,300 domestic and international flights daily, is now cancelling flights as part of efforts to tackle disruptions, primarily triggered by crew woes.

The On-Time Performance (OTP), an indicator of an airline's punctuality, plunged to 8.5 per cent on Thursday, as per the latest data from the civil aviation ministry.

The airline, which presents its punctuality as a hallmark, recorded an on-time performance of 19.7 per cent on Wednesday, a steep fall from 35 per cent reported on Tuesday.

On Thursday, the OTP of Air India and Air India Express were at 61 per cent and 58.6 per cent, respectively, while that of Akasa Air stood at 63 per cent.

The readings for SpiceJet and state-owned Alliance Air were at 56.4 per cent and 56 per cent, respectively.

The OTP is calculated based on the performance of airlines at six major airports -- Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.

Shares of IndiGo, which is partly-owned by Bhatia, fell nearly 3 per cent to Rs 5,291.45 in the afternoon trade on the BSE on Friday.

Under pressure, IndiGo said Friday should be the day with highest number of cancellations, as the airline is taking necessary steps to reboot its systems and schedules for progressive improvement.

"Short-term proactive cancellations are being made to ease operations, decongest the airports to prepare for starting stronger tomorrow," the airline said in a post on X.

Deeply apologising for the disruptions, IndiGo said the situation will not get resolved overnight.

"Today should be the day with highest number of cancellations, as we are doing all that is necessary to reboot all our systems and schedules for progressive improvement starting tomorrow," it said.