IndiGo Flight Cancellations: Day 7 Crisis in Bengaluru

Mumbai, Dec 8 (PTI) Flight disruptions at IndiGo entered the seventh day as the crisis-hit carrier cancelled 127 flights from Bengaluru Airport on Monday, a source said.

In another development, aviation safety regulator DGCA in an order on Sunday late evening extended the time by Monday 6 pm for IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers and Chief Operating Officer and Accountable Manager Isidro Porqueras to submit reply to its show cause notice over the ongoing disruptions in the airline's operations.

In the notices issued to Elbers and Porqueras on Saturday, the regulator said the large-scale operational failures pointed to significant lapses in planning, oversight, and resource management, and asked them to submit their replies within 24 hours.

IndiGo has cancelled 127 flights, including 65 arrivals and 62 departures from Bengaluru Airport, the source said.

The Gurugram-based airline, partially-owned by Rahul Bhatia, has been facing heat from both the government and the passengers for cancelling hundreds of flights since December 2, citing regulatory changes in the pilots' new flight duty and regulations norms, which resulted in lakhs of passengers getting stuck at airports pan-India.

For the first three days the airline failed to acknowledge the huge number of cancellations and it was only Friday when it cancelled 1,600 flights (Friday), a record in Indian aviation history that CEO Elbers released a video apologising for the major inconvenience caused to passengers due to the disruptions.

In the message, he admitted that the airline was cancelling a large number of flights, but did not mention that it would cancel 1,600 flights on that particular day.

The new norms, applicable for all domestic carriers, have come into force in two phases - July 1 and November 1 this year.

IndiGo has already temporarily secured major relaxations in the second phase norms till February 10.

The latest FDTL norms, which entail increased weekly rest periods to 48 hours, extended night hours, and limiting the number of night landings to only two, as against six earlier, were initially opposed by domestic airlines, including IndiGo and Tata Group-owned Air India.

But they were subsequently rolled out by the DGCA following the Delhi High Court's directives, albeit with a delay of over one year, in a phased manner, and with certain variations for airlines like IndiGo and Air India.

The norms were originally to be put in place from March 2024, but airlines, including IndiGo, sought a step-by-step implementation, citing additional crew requirements.