DGCA summons Indigo CEO over nationwide flight cancellations
Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has ordered IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers to present comprehensive data and updates pertaining to the network-wide severe disruption in the flight operations of India’s largest airline. Elbers has been instructed by the regulator to appear before the DGCA on Thursday (December 11) at 3 pm, and senior officials from all relevant departments have also been directed to attend the meeting.
According to the DGCA, the airline will present information on key aspects of the disruption and the mitigation measures put in place, including restoration of flights, recruitment plan for pilots and cabin crew, cancellation refunds to passengers hit by the crisis, return of piled-up baggage at airports, timely information to passengers, and re-routing of passengers affected due to flight cancellations. The regulator and the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) have been holding frequent meetings with IndiGo in view of the crisis that has led to scores of flights getting cancelled on a daily basis since the middle of last week, throwing airline operations across India out of gear.
The IndiGo top management has been called in for Thursday’s meeting a day after the government ordered a 10 per cent curtailment in IndiGo’s schedule. The decision was communicated by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on Tuesday following a meeting with Elbers, who was “summoned” to the ministry to provide an update on the airline’s stabilisation measures. Earlier, the DGCA had ordered the airline to curtail its schedule by 5 per cent, but MoCA doubled that to 10 per cent.
IndiGo is India’s largest airline with a domestic market share of nearly 65 per cent, and its schedule has over 2,300 daily flights, around 2,150 of which are domestic flights. A 10 per cent curtailment in domestic flights would mean that the airline’s daily scheduled flights within the country would come down to less than 1,950. IndiGo is currently operating a lower number of flights than that. Sources close to the airline said that IndiGo was looking to gradually increase its flights to its regular levels over the next few days. But it will now have to abide by the schedule curtailment ordered by the government. The freed-up slots may be offered to other carriers if they have additional capacity that can be deployed.
