Frequent flyers on Indigo will be wryly familiar with the standard announcement by the lead cabin crew when the flight lands at the destination- invariably highlighting the before time arrival -Indigo Standard Time. On the 3^rd Dec 2025, India’s premier airline went into a tailspin with hundreds of flights being cancelled due to ‘Operational problems’; hundreds more were delayed by hours and some even by a day. On the 5^th December the number of cancelled flights had reached a shocking 1000. How did Indigo with 19 relatively turbulence free years in the Indian skies find itself grounded in such an abject manner.?!!

Let’s first have a dekko at the Indian domestic aviation industry 2025. Indigo, which took off in 2006, has a 64% share in the market. It has 430 aircraft and flies 90 plus routes. (Statista data). In a duopoly scenario its only competitor is the Tata owned Air India and Air India Express- which has around 300 aircraft and 27 % of the market share. Akasa with a fleet of 30 aircraft has a 5% share and the struggling Spice Jet with 15 planes and 2.5% share.

One of the most effective expose and insights about the Indigo crisis was played out by Madeeha Mujawar on CNBC TV18 and a news article. The fiasco was not caused by a lack of pilots; but by a mismatch between manpower on paper and pilots actually available to fly. Especially in the context of the stricter FDTL Phase 2 rules (Flight Duty Time Limitation) which came into effect from the 1^st Nov 2025.

In November the airlines operated 1980 flights per day. This slumped to 700 on the 5^th December sparking off all the uproar and furore. There were more than 4455 pilots on roster showing a shortage of only 65 commanders. The airline, under furious attack, finally admitted to the DGCA (Director General of Civil Aviation) that it had grossly misjudged the manpower requirement for the FDTL phase 2 regulations. Poor manpower planning even with the new fatigue and rest rules in place meant that the Ops believed that they could manage without additional crew. Although Indigo did have access and network of 630 additional pilots. As the article (referred to in the previous para) ‘Inside the Indigo Crises ‘acutely observes ‘a small commander shortage (blip) turned into a large operational vacuum. Even one wrong assumption in a tightly run network can knock the entire system off-balance.’

In a hub and spoke model like Indigo a delay in the first wave spills into the second and so on. The domino effect kicks in. Rotations began collapsing and flight cancellations surged simply because, according to the new FDTL norms, pilots could no longer operate flights assigned to them. Many Indigo pilots did turn up at the airports. Only to be told that with the new fatigue and rest rules they could not fly. The lean staffing model lacked the buffer to address the transition required by regulatory change.

The FDTL 1 had been implemented in 1992. Thereafter, for many years the Pilots Association had been demanding stricter fatigue management rules aligned with global standards through litigation in the Delhi High Court. Finally in January 2024, the DGCA under the Civil Aviation Ministry came up with major changes in regulations -CAR 2024-with the phased implementation of FDTL 2 starting on the 1^st July 2025 (15 clauses) and fully enforced (7 clauses) by the 1^{st of} Nov 2025.  The regulatory framework was designed by the DGCA, but the implementation was subject to Delhi HC oversight. The critical changes per the new norms were- weekly rest for pilots increased from 36 hours to 48 hours; capping night landings to 2 a week; limiting night duties to max 2 consecutively; defining night hours as 12 am to 6 am.

A Perfect Storm was brewing at Indigo. The silent imbalance had been blindly overlooked-enough pilots on paper but not enough pilots to legally fly the schedules the airline was actually flying. When FDTL took hold, pilots started reaching their duty limits far sooner than expected. They started filing fatigue reports; fatigue reports surged and the new rest rules tightened the squeeze. With the new regulations, Indigo could not rotate pilots quickly enough to match its tight flight schedules.

Another major blow, which should have been anticipated, was the lack of good hotel accommodation due to the peak wedding season. At some outstations, Indigo struggled to find good accommodation for their crew. Per the norms, without a designated, comfortable room for rest and sleep, pilots could not be legally rostered for the next flight.

Then, the Civil Aviation Ministry apparently ‘surrendered’ to Indigo by providing exemption from the regulations till the 10^th Feb 2026. Media and social media went into uproar over this ‘cave in’ and some global bodies joined the chorus with criticism on’ compromising aviation safety and setting a bad precedent for aviation safety standards in India.’ But what exactly were the exemptions? A temporary rollback from midnight -6am to midnight-5am for more productive daily hours; temporary relaxation on nightly landing caps; withdrawal of rule preventing pilot leave from counting as weekly rest. Should the DGCA have been more diligent in keeping track with the duopoly airlines on FDTL 2. YES. They failed in their supervision duties and have to take accountability for the chaos which ensued. The DGCA is now keeping track with a 15-day review. However, the point also is that the airlines have been given enough time to set their house in order. Also, with Indigo’s dominance of the Indian aviation market and Christmas and holiday season round the corner, a balancing act had to be done. As I write this blog, indigo flights are back to 1900-1950 per day, near normal situation. Plus, as the Gulf News has declared- Regional Al Hind Air and a start-up Fly Express have been granted NOC by the Civil Aviation Ministry to operate their flights from 2026. As ICRA Outlook has observed, the air passenger traffic from April to October 2025 was just short of 9.5 crores with 1.5 crores for October itself.

Interestingly, some You Tubers have taken off with theories of Indigo deliberately engineering the crisis- a financial manoeuvre- for leveraging leasing of aircraft optimally or getting some financial favors from the Government of India. Methinks, it was the corporate hubris at Indigo, heads in the clouds and cut off from ground realities which precipitated the turmoil.

Yes, one does feel deep empathy for the passengers who bore the brunt of the cancellation of Indigo flights. The chaos and confusion did take its toll on those who had booked their flight tickets. Especially, for people who could not fly out for medical treatment or an important family event. But the fury of the aggrieved passengers was vented out on the frontline staff of the airline- overworked and undervalued as they are. Indigo has grown astoundingly over the last 2 decades, but the pilots and crew, engineers and maintenance staff and the counter staff and support team have been left behind. We are hearing Indigo voices,’ nothing happened overnight. We saw it coming.’ Look beyond the glamour and the brand. A Company which made a billion-dollar profit in the FY 23-24 (Rs 8172 crores); where intimidation and humiliation and fear are oft used management tools. So next time you see the cabin crew or counter staff smiling and saying ‘Namaskar’ it will help to respond affably. Behind the glitz lies the same toxic glaze which haunts much of corporate India.

The Indian aviation sector has seen a lot of turbulence over the last 2 decades. Kingfisher, India’s premier airline, collapsed with its license suspended in 2012. Sadly, many of its employees had not been paid for months. Poor business strategy, gross financial mismanagement with heavy debts and inability to service bank loans sounded the death knell. Reckless expansion-especially the disastrous merger with low-cost Air Deccan grounded the airline. Similar fault lines emerged in the eventual shutdown of Jet Airways in 2019. The 2006 purchase of Air Sahara for $500 million in cash = Jet Lite, the budget carrier, which haemorrhaged so much money that by 2015 the investment had to be written off.

Lack of a sustainable business model, reckless expansion and of course volatile fuel costs have scripted the end of many well-known international airlines as well. Swiss Air, under the advice of Mc Kinsey & Co attempted to become a global powerhouse by purchasing controlling stakes in struggling European Airlines. KAPUT.!! Pan Am, TWA, Eastern Airlines, Air Berlin, Thomas Cook Airlines have all declared bankruptcy and gone out of business. The dominant reason why Qatar Airways, Emirates and Etihad rule the skies is because they don’t have to worry about crude oil prices or supplies.

Let’s touch down with some curious coincidences. Vijay Mallya, the flamboyant owner of Kingfisher Airlines, has been a financial fugitive living in London for over a decade. At least on 2 occasions, British Courts have helped him out in the extradition appeal from the Government of India, saying that Indian jails and cells are not clean enough for the King of Good Times. Naresh Goyal, the founder of Jet Airways, finds himself in a Mumbai prison- convicted in 2023 in a Rs 538 crores money laundering case filed by Canara Bank. The late Subrata Roy, who launched Sahara Airlines (Air Sahara) in 1993 and sold it to Jet Airways spent 2 years in Tihar Jail for financial fraud (a SEBI- Supreme Court case).

It’s worth mentioning that prior to the Tata era in mid-2021, the State- owned enterprise Air India had accumulated huge losses of Rs 70,820 crores.  In March 2023, the airline booked a loss of Rs 11,387 crores and by March 2025, a loss of Rs 9,500 crores.

Operating a successful airline is a high-profile mix of efficiency and hospitality. Operating in a huge country like India requires a grounded approach plus a 360 degree vision on all the factors and variables which will ensure smooth take-offs and landings every time.