By Abhijith Ganapavaram, Aditya Kalra and Francis Mascarenhas
MUMBAI/BENGALURU, Dec 6 (Reuters) – India’s aviation watchdog on Saturday warned airline IndiGo of regulatory action after it cancelled thousands of flights over the last week, stranding passengers and forcing government action to limit a surge in airfares caused by the crisis.
The country’s biggest airline, IndiGo cancelled the flights because of a shortage of pilots after it failed to plan adequately for new rules limiting how many hours they work.
The civil aviation watchdog sent the notice to IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers, giving him 24 hours to respond and say why regulatory action – which can include penalties and suspension of officials – should not be taken against the airline.
As the CEO “you have failed in your duty to ensure timely arrangements for conduct of reliable operations,” said the notice, signed by Directorate General of Civil Aviation official, Ravinder Singh Jamwal.
The notice is confidential but was reviewed by Reuters. IndiGo did not respond to a request for comment on the warning.
Earlier in the day, India capped airfares, which have been driven higher by the increase in demand for flights operated by other carriers. IndiGo cancelled another 385 flights on Saturday, the fifth day of the crisis.
The government on Friday announced exemptions from the new rules for the carrier and laid on additional trains to help clear the backlog.
Delhi airport posted on X on Saturday that flight operations were steadily resuming. Cancellations however continued at many airports.
The Civil Aviation Ministry said it would “continue to closely monitor fare levels through real-time data and active coordination with airlines”.
Fares were last capped during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The Indian government said a one-way fare for a journey up to 500 kilometers cannot be more than 7,500 rupees ($83), whereas for journeys between 1,000 and 1,500 km – such as the New Delhi-Mumbai route – should be capped at 15,000 rupees ($167).
That was well under the 20,419 rupee ($227) price advertised by Air India on its website for a Delhi-Mumbai flight on Saturday.
BIGGEST CRISIS IN INDIGO’S TWO-DECADE HISTORY
The flight cancellations are the biggest crisis in IndiGo’s 20 years of operation. The airline has a more than 60% market share in the world’s most-populous country and has prided itself on on-time performance and affordable fares.
IndiGo has said it failed to plan adequately for the November 1 deadline to implement the stricter rules on night flying and weekly rest for pilots. It only suffered a roster crisis this week as December is the peak time for holidays and weddings in India.
On Friday, more than 1,000 IndiGo flights were cancelled. After the government announced the exemptions to the rules for IndiGo, the airline said it could return to normal operations between December 10 and 15.
On Saturday, IndiGo cancelled 124 flights in Bengaluru, 109 in Mumbai, 86 in New Delhi and 66 in Hyderabad, airport sources told Reuters.
Hundreds of passengers gathered outside Bengaluru and Mumbai airports on Saturday, some unaware of the cancellations, according to Reuters witnesses.
Satish Konde had to catch a connecting flight from Mumbai to the western city of Nagpur and had checked in before being told it was cancelled.
“I am waiting for my luggage to be returned,” he said.
PILOTS CRITICISE THE EXEMPTION, SAYING SAFETY COMES FIRST
The new pilot rest and duty rules capped the number of night landings to two from six and restricted the maximum number of hours a pilot can fly in the night to 10 hours.
For now, IndiGo has been exempted from both measures until February 10.
The new rules also said that if a pilot takes personal leave, that cannot be counted in calculating his weekly rest period of 48 hours. That restriction too has been put on hold for all airlines, given the IndiGo crisis.
That has upset pilot labour groups, who told the government that safety must not be compromised to make up for IndiGo’s poor planning, the head of the Federation of Indian Pilots, C.S. Randhawa, told Reuters.
The Airline Pilots Association of India objected on Friday, calling the relief for IndiGo “selective dispensation”. The norms “exist solely to safeguard human life,” the association said in a letter to the government.
Other major Indian airlines, including Air India and Akasa, have not had to cancel flights due to the new rules.
(Reporting by Francis Mascarenhas, Priyanshu Singh and Abhijith Ganapavaram; Additional reporting by Dhwani Pandya, Arpan Chaturvedi, Abhijith G and Aditi Shah; Writing by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Sam Holmes, Tom Hogue and Barbara Lewis)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.