Indigo cancels over 200 flights in single day due to 'crew shortage'; 'shut down,' say enraged passengers

NEW DELHI: Indigo airlines cancelled over 200 flights, and delayed countless others due to a crew shortage across airports in the country on Wednesday.
This is the second consecutive day that Indigo is unable to operate a large number of flights.
The airline, which operates over 2,200 flights daily, has scored a mere 35% on the punctuality front in operations on December 2 (Tuesday), reveals data released by the Ministry of Civil Aviation. This is the worst score among all the leading airlines assessed.
An official release from the aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Tuesday said a total of 1,232 flights had been cancelled by Indigo in November with 755 of them cancelled due to crew and Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) constraints.
Sources The New Indian Express spoke to stated that Indigo is facing a severe shortage of both cockpit and cabin crew and said it is due to a massive recruitment drive by international airline Emirates at Delhi and Mumbai this week.
However, Indigo attributed the significant disruption to multiple reasons, including unforeseen operational challenges.
Sixty-seven flights were cancelled at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport alone. Thirteen flights departing from Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Airport were cancelled; over 70 flights from Mumbai and Bengaluru airports were cancelled till Wednesday evening. Furthermore, flights to Kolkata and Srinagar were also cancelled.
Airline sources said that several Indigo crew have been making a beeline for Emirate's recruitment roadshow in Mumbai and Delhi the last two days.
An aviation source said, "The mismanagement on the part of Indigo too is a major reason for the crisis they have been facing the last two days. The revised Flight Duty Time Limitations were implemented by all airlines from November 1. Why is Indigo alone facing an issue? It is because of poor management of the situation, nothing else."
The new rostering rules included increased weekly rest for pilots, from 36 hours to 48 hours, and limiting night landings carried out by pilots to just two instead of six.
Passengers vent their rage
P Nataraj, who was due to fly from Chennai to Kochi early morning on December 4 by Flight 6E-534, shared the communication he received.
"After sending me a message that my flight was cancelled, I was told that I could instead be accomodated on a flight taking off at 9:20pm the next night (December 5). I was left with no option but to cancel my trip."
Passengers like Ashish K Singh took to twitter.
Singh posted about his delayed flight from Mumbai to Ahmedabad 6E 534 on X. "Stranded for 1-2 hours. Passengers deserve better. This is not just a delay. Passengers are left struggling, including senior citizens and families."
Another flyer Satish said, "Indian Railways takes around eight hours from Tirupati to Hyderabad. The great Indigo takes five hours from Tirupati to Hyderabad."
N Pradeep from Hyderabad posed, "Indigo, experienced your gate changing circus and flight delays for over four hours with no responsible staff in Hyderabad … SHUT DOWN your pathetic service."
In a statement, Indigo said, "We acknowledge that IndiGo's operations have been significantly disrupted across the network for the past two days, and we sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience caused."
The airlines attributed the disruption to "a multitude of unforeseen operational challenges including minor technology glitches, schedule changes linked to the winter season, adverse weather conditions, increased congestion in the aviation system and the implementation of updated crew rostering rules."
To contain the disruption and restore stability, Indigo claimed to have initiated calibrated adjustments to their schedules.
"These measures will remain in place for the next 48 hours and will allow us to normalise our operations and progressively recover our punctuality across the network," it said.
DGCA working with Indigo
As mentioned earlier, a total of 1,232 flights had been cancelled by Indigo in November with 755 of them cancelled due to crew and Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) constraints, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The regulator is investigating the present cancellation of flights and is working with Indigo to arrive at a solution.
An official release from the regulator said that 92 of these cancellations were an outcome of Air Traffic Control System failure, 258 were due to airport or airspace restrictions while other causes were behind the cancellation of 127 flights. These stats were based on data submitted by Indigo to the regulator.
The DGCA said, "A large share of cancellations arose from crew/FDTL compliance and airport/airspace/ATC-related factors, many of which lie beyond the operator's direct control."
The revised rostering rules for pilots and cabin crew, which offered them more rest every week and lesser flight landings during night hours, were introduced from November 1.
DGCA probing reasons
The aviation regulator said it is "currently investigating the situation and evaluating measures along with the airline to reduce cancellations and delays in order to minimise inconvenience being caused to passengers."
Indigo has been asked to report to DGCA Headquarters to present the facts leading to the current situation along with plans to mitigate the ongoing delays and cancellations.”
On-time performance too slid rapidly in November
Indigo's reputation on punctuality took a massive beating in November when its performance metrics dipped from 84.1% in October to just 67.7% in November. The key contributors to the delays were ATC (16%), Operations – crew (6%), airport facility issues 3% and others 98%), the DGCA said.
The corrective measures being undertaken presently is strengthening the crew planning and rostering, enhancing co-ordination with Air Traffic Control and airports to manage capacity constraints and improving turnaround and disruption-management processes, it added.