Shares of Interglobe Aviation, operator of India’s largest airline Indigo, fell more than 8% Monday as the carrier grapples with multiple flight cancellations.
Indigo, which operates more than 2,300 flights daily, could only fly 706 flights on Friday following a change in rules about pilots’ rest time for pilots, leading to massive disruptions.
On Sunday, the company said in a release that it operated 1,650 flights and it expects “stabilization of the network” by Wednesday.
India’s civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said on Monday that the government has ordered an investigation into the disruptions of Indigo’s flight services.
“We will take strict action,” the minister said, warning the airline of consequences for “non-compliance.”
Passenger woes
Chirag Shah, an EY consultant who was travelling from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai with his family, faced an 11-hour delay.
He said travellers, especially those with a single-entry visa, were left stranded.
That 11-hour delay exposed “a worrying lack of passenger support,” Shah told CNBC, adding that a few passengers were re-seated on a different Indigo flight “after hours of follow-ups with the airport authorities.”
Indigo has not said whether it has issued all refunds for cancelled and severely delayed flights, after a government directive gave it until Sunday, 8 PM India time to do so. Indigo had processed 6.10 billion rupees (USD 67.6 million) as of 5 pm that day.
Shah said that the only conciliatory offer he had had was a McDonalds’ free meal coupon.
Indigo Airlines and the Civil Aviation Ministry had not responded to requests for comment from CNBC when this article went live.
The rule change
On Thursday, the airline told the ministry that cancellations were due to “challenges in crew planning and implementation of the revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) norms.”
Under the rules, announced in January 2024 and in effect since Nov. 1, pilots are expected to fly fewer late-night flights and rest time for crew has been increased from 36 hours to 48 hours.
On Friday, after disruptions due to flight cancellations by Indigo peaked, the government temporarily suspended its implementation of Flight Duty Time Limitations rules.
Indigo’s CEO, Pieter Elbers, was ordered by India’s aviation watchdog to explain the disruption and has been granted an extension for sending his responses, according to local media reports.
There were 1.3 million scheduled flights in India in 2024, of which 1.1 million were domestic flights, per the International Air Transport Association.
Indigo dominates Indian air transport in terms of scheduled seat capacity with a market share of around 53.4%, up from 23% in 2016.
Source: CNBC