Early Times Report
NEW DELHI, Dec 10: Aviation watchdog DGCA will station its personnel at IndiGo's headquarters as it steps up oversight on India's largest airline, which continues to cancel dozens of flights despite saying operations have stabilised. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has formed an oversight team of eight senior captains, and two of them, along with two government officials, will be stationed at IndiGo's Gurgaon headquarters to monitor cancellation status, crew deployment, unplanned leave, and routes hit by staff shortages.
"Both these teams will submit a daily report," the DGCA said in the two page order. DGCA also summoned IndiGo Chief Executive Pieter Elbers to appear at its office on Thursday and submit a complete report, along with comprehensive data and updates, relating to the recent operational disruptions, according to a statement. Senior officials from the DGCA will carry out immediate on-site inspections to assess IndiGo's operations across 11 domestic airports, according to an official order on Wednesday. All assigned officers will visit their respective airports in the next 2-3 days, and submit a comprehensive report to the Director of Operations for the flight safety department at the DGCA in New Delhi within 24 hours of their visit, the order said.
Since last week, IndiGo cancelled thousands of flights nationwide after failing to plan for tighter safety regulations. The cancellations peaked on December 5 and have declined since. The airline on Tuesday said its operations have stabilised and were back to normal levels.
But the cancellations continued with nearly 220 flights at three major airports, including Delhi and Mumbai, cancelled.
As part of the winter schedule for 2025-26, the airline has been operating over 2,200 flights per day.
The latest order is part of a suite of actions by authorities that followed IndiGo, which controls over 65 per cent of the market share, cancelling more than 4,000 flights since December 2 that left tens of thousands of passengers stranded, upending their vacation plans, important meetings, and weddings.
Separately, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday questioned the central government for not taking timely action to check the crisis, asking why the situation was allowed to precipitate.
"The question is why, at all, this crisis arose and what have you been doing?" a bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said and directed the government and the airline to take steps to adequately compensate the affected persons. |
