IndiGo, India’s top airline carrier, is experiencing a historic operational crisis on Friday. This chaos resulted in the cancellation of over 1,000 flights across the country. This disruption impacted hundreds of thousands of customers including in key COVID-19 response centers like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The airline’s CEO, Pieter Elbers, issued an apology to passengers and acknowledged the company’s shortcomings in planning for upcoming regulatory changes.
On Friday, IndiGo had canceled 235 flights out of Delhi Airport. They canceled 165 of these flights from Mumbai, 102 from Bengaluru, and 92 from Hyderabad. As far as public perception is concerned, the airline’s woes resulted from its inability to fully gear up for a November 1 deadline for new aviation regulations. Consequently, IndiGo requested and obtained a temporary exemption from some regulations from India’s civil aviation regulators.
Elbers expressed regret for the situation, stating, “I do understand that these disruptions have shaken customers’ belief in IndiGo’s reliability.” This recognition deepens the harm of the cancellations, eroding customer faith and tarnishing the airline’s reputation.
IndiGo tried to address the outrage over the crazy cancellation spree by waiving fees on all cancellations and changes in bookings. Note that this only applies to the travel between December 5 and December 15. Additionally, the airline arranged ground transportation and secured thousands of hotel rooms for stranded passengers to mitigate the disruptions caused by the operational crisis.
IndiGo expressly stated to Indian officials that complete restoration of its operations would not take place before February 10. The airline was granted the temporary exemption, which came today. This gives pilots significantly longer flight duty periods when they are flying at night compared to other times of day. The tougher rule requiring a minimum of one 48-hour period each week for pilots to be off work remains in effect. Even though this requirement has been delayed until at least mid-February.
IndiGo was experiencing serious operational challenges that led to a decrease in their stock price. On Friday, shares closed down 1.2%, and for the week, they were down about 9%. Elbers said customers should expect to see “continuous improvement” beginning this Saturday. He cautioned that full restoration to a completely normalized operational state could take as far away as December 10 or December 15.
This disruption also points to deeper challenges facing the aviation sector, as airlines adjust to new service regulations and requirements, while trying to uphold their service commitment. So we’re really, actively, positively trying to come back from that failure. Simultaneously, it needs to regrow passenger confidence and find its way through the new world of growing regulatory pressures on its operation.
