CAUGHT IN A PERFECT STORM

Lax IndiGo prep to implement new rostering rules, allegedly hoping to leverage its ‘monopoly’ after massive disruptions, landed it in uncharted territory

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IN what could be described as an aviation tsunami, market leader IndiGo's brand reputation built on years of punctuality and reliability was reduced to mud this month as it cancelled hundreds of flights due to a mess of its own making. Chaotic scenes at airports of frantic fathers looking for food for their kids, mothers hankering for water, and the elderly barely able to stand in queues shook up the whole aviation industry. The situation has since stabilised though departure cancellations haven't ended yet.

Various explanations have been offered to make sense of the unexpected turbulence-from lax planning to align with a new roster system for the crew's night operations to conspiracy theories on 'engineering' the crisis to force the regulator to bend to its terms as the airline holds virtual monopoly. Curiously, IndiGo appointing an external aviation expert, Captain John Illson, to carry out a root-cause analysis of the massive flight disruptions could suggest that the airline itself isn't completely certain as to where it went wrong. Or is it indulging in window dressing till the dust settles? The jury is out.

Recent images of its CEO Pieter Elbers apologising to Union civil aviation minister K Ram Mohan Naidu with folded hands went viral. With Elbers facing regulatory heat from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), IndiGo chairman Vikram Singh Mehta stepped in to reject charges of engineering the crisis or attempting to influence government rules.

The regulator took the first accountability hit as the DGCA dismissed four of its own Flight Operations Inspectors, who allegedly slept on the job though they were assigned exclusively to oversee IndiGo's transition to the new roster system. The system is aligned with the international Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules to enhance aviation safety. It also slashed the permitted volume of the airline's daily flights by 10% to restore order.

Meteoric rise