IndiGo crisis exposes a broken regulatory system

{ UNPRECEDENTED MELTDOWN

- Anjuli Bhargava

Last week's aviation fiasco - continuing this week but beginning to ebb - may have been piloted by the country's leading airline IndiGo, but it was fuelled by a system designed to fail. It has highlighted several gaps that need to be plugged if India is to achieve the goal of Viksit Bharat (developed India).

Indian passengers paid a heavy price -- with some resorting to climbing on counters in airports and others reduced to tears -- thanks to the duopoly (the market leader, IndiGo has around 60% share, and Air India and its affiliates have around 25%) that is the aviation market. All the dangers of a duopoly in full force when market leader IndiGo miscalculated (or chose to deliberately miscalculate as is being alleged openly by its own staff) its crew requirements post the new rest and duty guidelines that came into force on November 1, after the court's intervention.

This led to a breakdown of the roster through the month of November, leading to innumerable delays and a total of 1200 flight cancellations during the month. Matters reached a head on Friday, December 5, when a total of 1500 out of the 2200 daily flights stood cancelled. Scenes of passenger despair, massive congestion, utter chaos at airports and even a protest decrying the airline played out on screens . As passengers tried to find alternatives, fares across airlines skyrocketed.

The question that needs to be asked is whether this situation could have been avoided. The unequivocal answer to this is, yes; this is a crisis of the airline's own making with support from a regulatory system that is fundamentally broken.