Swaraat / Swaraat Editor Desk
Desperation has kicked in, utter chaos across airports with over thousand flights cancelled and the industry leader needs another week to normalise operations. Brace yourself for a turbulant period as the industry grapple to get back on to its feet. Direcorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) pressed new Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) rules from 1st November after giving ample notice period of almost two years (January 2024). Due to ongoing crisis the government has relaxed the norms for another 2 months. Meanwhile, a high-level probe has been ordered to identify the cause of the issue.
The Contentious Rule
The new FDLT rules effective 1st November 2025 enforces two night time landing for a pilot in a week from six. It also extended mandatory rest per week from 36 hrs to 48 hrs. Window Of Circadian Low (WOCL) has been extended by an hour from 00:00-05:00 to 00:00-06:00. These changes threw the roster of Indigo into a dizzy.
Underprepared Market Leader
Indigo is the only player heavily impacted by new mandatory rules implemented by the ministry as it owns around 63% market share in indian aviation business. Almost 44% of 2200 daily flight got cancelled with Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru being majorly affected. Operational challenges, technical glitches, non-poaching agreements and weather have brewed a perfect concoction of disruption. The airline termed it as ‘operational gap’ though they didnt recruit required number of pilots to overcome the FDTL norms. Last week software upgrade to negate solar flares in Airbus fleets ushered an unprecedented delays and cancellation.
Dysfunctional agency
There is an agency called ‘Competition Commission of India’ which is entrusted with task of monitoring fair play and competitive atmosphere across industries. Oligopoly has been creeping in but they remained a silent spectator. Almost 90% of aviation business is shared between two major players, Indigo and Air India, in india. Likewise, other important sectors like telecom also has oligopoly problem, which the government as well as the agency conveniently ignored.
DGCA complacency
DGCA failed in impementation or execution of the rules. If they felt safety is their priority, they should have conducted a quarterly audit from January 2024 to ensure strict adherence of FDTL rules, instead they allowed the issue to balloon beyond threshold that landed the country in today’s scenario. Pilot fatigue collapse reported in August 2023 forced the directorate to implement measures to improve safety of both pilots and passengers. The Directorate should have been pro-active rather than reactive.
Government is equally responsible
The centre cannot wash their hand of by blaming the carrier alone for the debacle. In hindsight, if there was one government owned carrier, it could have reduced dependency on Indigo, it could have been pressed into service to ease the tension. Now, they have to depend on another private player to come to its rescue. Centre may take strict action against Indigo, but who will take action against the centre for being lackadaisical in administration. Public in anger, flights in hanger, government in sanger.