- IndiGo cancelled over 550 flights on Thursday due to operational disruptions
- The Civil Aviation Ministry and DGCA met IndiGo officials to seek solutions
- Flight cancellations occurred at multiple airports including Mumbai and Bangalore
In a record for the 20-year-old airline, IndiGo cancelled over 550 flights on Thursday as operational disruptions continued for a third day.
The airline is grappling with significant flight disruptions due to a multitude of factors, including cabin crew woes and technology issues. IndiGo has adjusted its schedules which means that pre-planned service cancellations are being carried out as part of normalising operations.
The airline said more flights will be cancelled in the next two-three days. IndiGo flies around 2,300 flights daily and presents its punctuality as a hallmark; it recorded an on-time performance of 19.7 per cent on Wednesday, a steep fall from 35 per cent reported on Tuesday.
The Civil Aviation Ministry and the regulator DGCA met senior IndiGo officials today to look into the matter and work on a solution.
IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers told the staff that normalising operations and bringing back punctuality will not be an "easy target".
There were at least 118 flight cancellations at the Mumbai airport, 100 at Bangalore, 75 at Hyderabad, 35 at Kolkata, 26 at Chennai, and 11 at Goa, news agency PTI reported. Flight cancellations were reported from other airports too.
IndiGo has admitted that it misjudged crew requirements under the new norms and faced planning gaps, resulting in inadequate crew availability at a time when winter weather and congestion were also affecting operations.
The definition of night duty being revised from midnight to 5 am to midnight to 6 am is rolled back temporarily. Additionally, the cap on night landing to two is also temporarily on hold.
IndiGo told the DGCA that the disruptions stemmed from transitional difficulties in implementing Phase 2 of the revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) norms, which came into effect on November 1 following a court directive. IndiGo said that the actual number of pilots needed for FDTL Phase 2 exceeded their anticipation.
Crew requirement data presented by the airline showed that after Phase 2 implementation, required staffing levels rose noticeably, particularly for night-time operations, where slot availability is limited and pilot duty time restrictions are tighter.
The new rules, designed to improve fatigue management and pilot safety, have significantly altered crew rostering patterns.
