India’s largest airline cancelled over 300 flights and experienced delays in hundreds of other flights in the last 48 hours. Major Indian airports are overwhelmed, and passengers are stranded, as IndiGo battles one of its toughest operational crises in recent years.
IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers has issued an apology to employees, acknowledging that the carrier has failed to meet the expectations of the 3.8 lakh passengers it serves daily.
In his internal email titled Stronger Together, Elbers wrote the disruption stemmed from “an accumulation of several operational challenges”, including minor technology glitches, schedule changes, adverse weather, heightened congestion across the aviation ecosystem and the enforcement of the new Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) norms for pilots. The tightened rules, effective November 1, have squeezed crew availability across airlines, but IndiGo has taken the sharpest hit due to the size and complexity of its network.
The crisis intensified after the airline cancelled 150 flights on Wednesday, cautioning that “calibrated adjustments” to schedules would continue for at least 48 hours as crew rosters and operational resources were rebalanced.
