How to open up Indian skies

The recent airport chaos across India has sparked calls to foster adequate competition in the domestic aviation sector. One way could be to look at what other countries are doing

- SURAJEET DAS GUPTA

Signs of a crisis were clearly discernible in November, just after norms requiring more rest hours for pilots came into effect from the 1st of the month. In that month alone, IndiGo Airlines cancelled over 950 flights.

However, on December 1, when IndiGo executives met top officials of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to get some clarification on the new norms, they gave no indication that India’s largest airline was in a serious mess, said people aware of the development. Nor did the company put together a plan of action to inform customers of the possibility of mass cancellation of flights — in order to prevent airport chaos.

Just two days later, the airline that has a stranglehold in the Indian skies with a 65 per cent market share brought the country’s domestic aviation network aground. With over 5,500 IndiGo flights cancelled across airports in the first few days of December, impacting over 600,000 passengers till date, this is India’s worst aviation crisis.

Blame game

Predictably, a blame game followed. Aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu, defending the regulator DGCA, blamed the meltdown squarely on the airline for gross mismanagement, directed it to give full return for cancelled flights, and warned that no one will be spared if a four-member committee set up by the ministry to investigate the matter held the management responsible.

But some aviation experts said it was this crisis that forced the government to relax the Flight Duty Time Relaxation or FDTL norms until February 10, a move they feared could jeopardise passenger safety once again.