As the airline faces massive disruptions, including 300 cancellations on Thursday alone, IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers has acknowledged that the carrier failed to live up to its promise of providing a good experience to its customers.
In a letter to IndiGo employees on Thursday, Elbers said the airline has apologised for the delays and cancellations, and emphasised that several factors caused a cascading effect, leading to a severe impact on operations.
"These past few days have been difficult for many of our IndiGo customers and colleagues. We serve close to 380,000 customers a day and want each of them to have a good experience. We could not live up to that promise these past days and we have publicly apologised for that," Elbers wrote.
The CEO also mentioned the revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL), aimed at ensuring pilots and crew get adequate rest, which IndiGo has been citing as one of the key causes for the disruption in operations.
"An accumulation of several operational challenges - including minor technology glitches, schedule changes, adverse weather conditions, heightened congestion in the aviation ecosystem, and the implementation of the newly released FDTL norms - compounded negatively to create a cascading impact on our operations," he told employees.
Assuring customers, Elbers said the airline understands their concerns and is making all efforts to resolve the issues as soon as possible.
"We are feeling our customers' concern and anxieties just as deeply. We are proactively reaching out to affected customers and helping them in every way possible to ease their discomfort," he said.
Cautious Optimism
Earlier on Thursday, IndiGo officials met representatives of aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation, which is investigating the delays and cancellations by the carrier. In his letter, Elbers appreciated the efforts of his employees in dealing with the situation and also thanked authorities at airports as well as regulators for their support.
"I would like to express gratitude and appreciation to all the colleagues in operations, including pilots, cabin crew, OCC (Operations Control Centre), engineers, customer support, digital, frontline staff at airports and their leadership teams who are working tirelessly to manage the situation, minimise the impact, and restore stability as quickly as possible," he wrote.
The CEO expressed confidence that the situation would be normalised, but also acknowledged that doing so would not be easy.
"Given the size, scale and complexity of our network, these disruptions grow large immediately and require interventions on multiple levels and dimensions. For that, a lot of work is being conducted right now. Our immediate goal is to normalise our operations and bring punctuality back on track in the coming days, which is not an easy target," Elbers wrote.
"We have faced tough moments before, but we turned challenges into triumphs, proving our resilience, strength, and unity. This moment will be no different... Together, as one team, we will overcome this challenge and emerge even stronger," he added.
