IndiGo crisis: Govt vows tough action

Co didn't raise concerns: Minister. Sought more time: IndiGo

- Dipali Banka & Abhishek Law

The Union government on Monday vowed stringent action against India's largest airline IndiGo, after mass flight cancellations over the past week stranded travellers across the country. However, while the Centre claimed IndiGo had never raised any concerns about the new pilot rest rules, the airline stated that it had indeed requested more time to comply.

Civil aviation minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu claimed IndiGo had already flown under the new flight duty time limitation (FDTL) rules in all of November, rejecting the airline's attempt to link the December disruption to its rollout. He asserted that the meltdown stemmed from IndiGo’s own operational failures, not regulatory changes. IndiGo did not raise any red flag about the new rostering norms when a review was done in December, Naidu said.

“On 1 December, we had a meeting with IndiGo on FDTL itself when they required some clarifications. We have given the clarifications with that idea and they have not flagged this issue. Everything was running normal till then,” Naidu said.

“So, there was one full month of operations in the new FDTL norms... There have been a lot of internal complications. This is a day to day operations thing that IndiGo should have maintained,” the minister said in Rajya Sabha.