- IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers resigned effective March 10, 2026
- Rahul Bhatia appointed interim head of IndiGo's management affairs
- Elbers' exit comes nearly three months after the airline faced massive flight disruptions
IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers has resigned and Managing Director Rahul Bhatia has been appointed interim charge of management of the affairs of the company, the airline said in a regulatory filing today. Elbers' exit comes nearly three months after the airline faced massive flight disruptions that left at least three lakh passengers stranded.
Eventually, the aviation regulator DGCA imposed penalties totalling Rs 22.20 crore on IndiGo, along with other actions.
"We wish to inform you that the Board of Directors of the Company, at its meeting held today, i.e., March 10, 2026, inter-alia, took note of the resignation tendered by Mr. Pieter Elbers, Chief Executive Officer. He will be relieved from the service of the Company effective close of business hours on March 10, 2026. Mr. Rahul Bhatia, Managing Director, shall in the interim assume management of the affairs of the Company," IndiGo said in the filing.
Elbers, who took the helm at IndiGo in September 2022, had been under sustained pressure since the airline's worst operational crisis in December last year grounded its reputation along with hundreds of flights.
The financial damage amounted to Rs 2,000 crore, sources had exclusively told NDTV Profit.
In his resignation letter to Bhatia, Elbers cited "personal reasons" for his departure, and asked that his notice period be waived. "It has been both an honour and privilege to serve as IndiGo's CEO these past years," he wrote. "And being a part of the great IndiGo family, its beautiful growth story and the steps we have made together."
On January 29, in a candid reflection on the flight disruptions, Elbers accepted IndiGo failed its customers for three days, but added the crisis does not define IndiGo's 20-year legacy.
"We cannot let three days go by, and if you want to make it seven days, define what IndiGo has built over 20 years... We have to learn from it. We're on a journey to become one of the largest operators in the world and an airline that matches the size, potential, and opportunity of India," he had said at an event in Hyderabad.
The December flight disruptions had triggered an investigation into the airline's processes. The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) along with the DGCA had strongly criticised the airline, after which IndiGo announced that an in-depth review of the robustness and resilience of internal processes had been going on ever since the crisis.
A four-member inquiry committee, set up by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on the directions of the MoCA, found that the primary causes of the IndiGo flight disruptions were over-optimisation of operations, inadequate regulatory preparedness, weak software systems, and shortcomings in management oversight at IndiGo.
The committee noted that IndiGo failed to maintain adequate operational buffers and did not effectively implement the revised flight duty time limitation (FDTL) norms. Crew rosters were designed to maximise utilisation, relying heavily on dead-heading, tail swaps and extended duty periods, which reduced recovery margins and compromised operational resilience.
