Mumbai, Dec 11 (PTI) Disaster-hit IndiGo cancelled 60 flights from Bengaluru Airport on Thursday, as security watchdog DGCA tightened its scrutiny following large-scale disruptions in providers on account of planning failures associated to the implementation of recent pilot and crew obligation norms, a supply stated.
“IndiGo has cancelled 60 flights — 32 arrivals and 28 departures from Bengaluru Airport,” the supply stated.
In the meantime, IndiGo CEO Piter Elbers has been summoned by the Directorate Common of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to submit a complete report, together with information and updates, on the latest operational disruptions on Thursday.
On Wednesday, IndiGo cancelled 220 flights from throughout three key airports — Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai, with Delhi seeing essentially the most cancellations at 137.
On Wednesday, IndiGo Chairman Vikram Mehta spoke for the primary time in 10 days concerning the disaster, apologising for the chaos and attributing the large disruptions to a mixture of inner and exterior “unanticipated” occasions.
These “embrace minor technical glitches, scheduled modifications linked to the beginning of the Winter season, hostile climate situations, elevated congestion within the aviation system, and implementation of/ and operation below the up to date crew rostering guidelines,” Mehta stated.
It’s important to notice right here that different Indian carriers additionally confronted these “unanticipated exterior occasions “, however their operations remained largely unaffected.
It’s pertinent to say that, IndiGo has seen its pilots’ power depleting by 378 pilots within the final 9 months regardless of its chief working officer and Accountable Supervisor, Isidro Porqueras stating to the DGCA in a letter final December that “the general impression of implementing the proposed modifications above (now-implemented FDTL) norms would quantity to an approximate 3 per cent improve in crewing necessities.
As per a reply in Parliament to a member’s query earlier this yr, IndiGo had employed 5,463 pilots as of March 20, 2025.
Nonetheless, as per information offered by Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol on December 8 in reply to a Member’s query, IndiGo had employed 5,085 pilots.
Protecting a decent watch on IndiGo’s operations, the DGCA has determined to station its personnel at IndiGo’s headquarters, because it steps up oversight on India’s largest airline, which continues to cancel dozens of flights regardless of saying operations have stabilised.
The DGCA has shaped an oversight group of eight senior captains, and two of them, together with two authorities officers, shall be stationed at IndiGo’s Gurgaon headquarters to watch cancellation standing, crew deployment, unplanned go away, and routes hit by workers shortages.
These groups will submit a day by day report back to the regulator, as per an order.
Pilots’ physique Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) within the latest previous alleged that whereas all different airways have provisioned pilots adequately and stay largely unaffected as a result of well timed planning and preparation, the present disruption at IndiGo was the direct consequence of the airline’s “extended and unorthodox lean manpower technique throughout departments, significantly in flight operations.”
Regardless of the two-year preparatory window earlier than full FDTL implementation, the airline “inexplicably adopted a hiring freeze, entered non-poaching preparations, maintained a pilot pay freeze by way of cartel-like behaviour, and demonstrated different short-sighted planning practices,” it stated.
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