The 'great' IndiGo tragedy: Some afterthoughts

India has just faced its worst aviation crisis. There is much to be critical about, but before pointing fingers, let us begin on a positive note.

A friend sent a telling image a few months ago. In it, he was caressing his teenage daughter's hair as she slept soundly on the tray table of an IndiGo flight. Just above her head, on the back of the seat in front, were the words marking the airline's anniversary: "How time flies…18 years of IndiGo."

For him – and for millions of Indian flyers – IndiGo is not merely a favourite budget airline that lands on time. It has become the default choice for both personal and work journeys, woven into everyday life and the creation of cherished memories.

"The first time my daughter's name appeared on anything beyond her birth certificate was on an IndiGo boarding pass. She was just three months old then," he once recalled.

IndiGo's journey, in many ways, mirrors the arc of growing up: a bright-eyed child finding its footing, a disciplined youth climbing with purpose, and a mature adult leading the industry with quiet confidence.

It is hardly surprising that, until the recent crisis, Indian flyers scarcely sensed a monopoly – even as IndiGo aircraft came to dominate airport aprons.

A bit of history 
IndiGo entered the skies in 2006 with just one new A320 aircraft on the Delhi–Guwahati–Imphal sector, challenging an industry ruled by Air India, Jet Airways, Kingfisher, and the budget pioneer Air Deccan.

IndiGo's subsequent rise was a rare saga in the country's civil aviation. Its growing network across all Indian metropolitan cities, along with on-time performance and quick round trips, earned passenger trust – even as other airlines suffered losses or vanished from the skies.

By 2015, IndiGo had begun projecting its dominance through aggressive marketing, most notably a billboard campaign carrying the tagline "Sleep with your wife: Same-day return flights from all metros."(In a bitter twist, amid the recent fiasco involving thousands of IndiGo flight cancellations, an aggrieved customer subverted the slogan with biting sarcasm: "Sleep with your wife – because you'll be at home, thanks to our cancelled flights.")

IndiGo's dominance of India's domestic aviation market – now at 65 per cent, up from 32 per cent in 2014 – has been carefully cultivated over a decade. It practically redefined what reliable air connectivity means for Indians, doing so with a modern fleet – truly justifying its slogan, 'India by IndiGo: Connecting you to every corner of the country.'

The airline is currently pursuing its global ambitions by launching services to European destinations such as Manchester, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam, expanding beyond its existing operations in the Gulf region.

During the financial year 2024–25, InterGlobe Aviation, the parent company of IndiGo, recorded a profit of ₹7,253 crore, making it India's only profitable major airline.

Yet, beneath the headline success, a deeper crisis is unfolding in India's skies.

Why the crisis?
As per its latest in-flight magazine, IndiGo operates more than 2,200 flight operations across 130 domestic and international destinations, effectively using just over 400 aircraft. 

No other Indian airline sweats its fleet like IndiGo, with its aircraft spending most of their time in the air, hopping across multiple destinations. However, IndiGo has kept hiring to a bare minimum, with no fresh pilot recruitment in the past six months.

Here's the bottom line: India's largest airline runs on an ultra-lean staffing model, pushing pilots to fly on minimal rest and raising serious questions about passenger safety.

All was quiet on the IndiGo front until a systemic crack emerged from the government's side. The aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), introduced Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) to ensure that pilots and cabin crew across Indian aviation are adequately rested before their next flight.

The FDTL norms have curtailed duty hours and capped the number of night landings per week to address pilot fatigue – measures that directly challenge IndiGo's 'fewer pilots, more flights' business model.

Indian airline companies were given ample time to implement the FDTL norms, yet IndiGo's response has remained lukewarm. Despite intense lobbying by InterGlobe Aviation and the Tata Group, the DGCA rolled out the new pilot rest and duty-hour norms in a phased manner, in compliance with a Delhi High Court mandate.

The inevitable IndiGo meltdown began in late November but intensified in the first week of December, marked by massive flight cancellations and passenger chaos at airports.

'Catch me if you can'
The answer that immediately comes to mind is a catchphrase painted on the passenger boarding stairs of many IndiGo aircraft: "Catch me if you can."

Beyond corporate greed – manifested in profit maximisation through minimal staffing – IndiGo's management appeared to nurture an illusion of being 'untouchable', confident that no regulator would dare confront an airline capable of paralysing Indian skies.

No wonder IndiGo did not proceed with proper manpower planning – that is, hiring and training more pilots – in accordance with DGCA guidelines ahead of its hectic winter schedule.

The government, however, stood firm, making it clear that efficient operations or market dominance would not excuse regulatory lapses compromising passenger safety.

"No airline, however large, will be permitted to cause undue hardship to passengers through planning failures, non-compliance, or non-adherence to statutory provisions. Safety in civil aviation is completely non-negotiable," stated Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu in the Lok Sabha on December 9, after the IndiGo crisis had begun to subside.

The government is right in principle, but these reactive fixes will not address the systemic issues of one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets, such as India.

Is a proactive approach missing?
Aviation is not just another easy-profit business. Exorbitant operational costs, high fuel prices, thin profit margins, and its capital-intensive nature make airline companies highly vulnerable to losses despite massive investments.

"If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline." The famous quip by Richard Branson, British business magnate and founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways, remains a dark reminder.

The Indian aviation sector offers a telling example; what immediately comes to the minds of Malayalis is the rise and fall of East West Airlines in the 1990s, founded by Varkala native and entrepreneur Thakiyudeen Abdul Wahid.

In the first quarter of this century, nine airline companies exited the Indian market, while the chronically loss-making Air India was privatised and handed over to the Tata Group.

Could Indian aviation's worst-ever crisis, involving the country's largest airline, have been averted through a more proactive response from the Ministry of Civil Aviation or the DGCA?

IndiGo's approach to the FDTL norms can certainly be read as corporate arrogance or culpable negligence. This raises a bigger question: could the crisis have been avoided if the aviation regulator had engaged earlier and more diligently with IndiGo's management, even using judicial intervention if needed?

Post-crisis, the IndiGo CEO was summoned multiple times to appear before DGCA for detailed explanations, and top officials from the Ministry of Civil Aviation conducted "surprise visits" to airports across the country to monitor IndiGo's flight operations.

Was the DGCA unaware of the concentration risk created by IndiGo's dominant position in the Indian aviation market and the implications of its ultra-lean staffing model? In such a scenario, don't systemic measures, such as the implementation of FDTL norms, demand close and sustained regulatory oversight?

IndiGo may have weathered the storm, restoring its brand value, stock performance, and flight operations – but uncomfortable questions remain.

Tailpiece 
A few personal moments from Bengaluru on 6 and 7 December are worth recalling, as the IndiGo crisis reached its peak. Landing at Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport on the morning of 6 December was an experience like no other.

Angry IndiGo passengers from cancelled flights swarmed the departure counters, gripped by uncertainty over when – if at all – they would fly again. Over 1,000 flights across India had been cancelled the previous day.

In the midst of the chaos, a nearby manned help desk offering free water bottles and plain tea stood as the terminal's sole gesture of comfort.

By the evening of December 7, the crisis at the airport had eased somewhat, though around 650 flights remained cancelled throughout the country. Still those were days when you felt among the luckiest on earth, watched with envy by others, simply because your departure flight was not on the cancellation list.

The IndiGo counters remained on fire, with passengers from cancelled flights arguing with airline staff over misinformation and mistreatment.

One of the most disappointing sights was the help desk. It had become unmanned; the tea kettle was gone, and only a handful of water bottles remained, unclaimed, as no one was sure if they were meant for them.

It is all the more disappointing because this is Bengaluru – the poster city of India's growth story.

All the more bitter because it is an airport that runs on profit, and the crisis involved the country's market-leading airline.

Afterthoughts linger, endless, on the 'great' IndiGo tragedy.

(Social anthropologist and novelist Thomas Sajan and US-trained neurologist Titto Idicula, based in Norway, write on politics, culture, economy, and medicine)