The massive cancellation of hundreds of IndiGo flights for the past one week has come as a rude shock to passengers. The entire aviation sector has been severely hit. A refund by itself is small comfort to the millions of affected passengers. Nor would the government decree to put a cap on airfares in this context mean much. A strict enforcement of the rules vis-a-vis pilots’ duty hours, related mainly to night duty and weekly rest, created this situation in which the largest airline was caught off-guard. In such a rescheduling, it could not find sufficient numbers of pilots to fly its planes. Faced with a serious crisis, the government has agreed to relax the rules for IndiGo, following which a rebooting was resorted to and the situation slowly eased by the weekend. Meanwhile, the abrupt cancellations obviously resulted in a situation of other airlines quadrupling the fares, leading to governmental intervention and imposition of a cap on fares. This too is small comfort for the harried passengers.
Holding the reputation of being India’s largest airline, IndiGo carried some 65 per cent of the air passenger volume daily and is cited as the second largest airline in Asia. It operates around 2,700 flights to over 130 destinations, including over 40 foreign cities. Started in 2006 as a private entity by a Punjabi entrepreneur, it attained the status of the largest airline in a matter of six years. Indigo is rated as the sixth busiest airline in the world and runs on impressive lines. However, rules are important for the airlines and their pilots, more so in relation to safety of flight operations. But no airline can implement rules of this kind all of a sudden. It cannot get larger numbers of pilots in a jiffy with a magic wand. This would involve proper training and extensive experience. The Director General of Civil Aviation faces criticism from airline pilots’ association for the “selective and unsafe relief” it now gave to IndiGo. The association has a point when it stressed that such rule relaxations have not just destroyed regulatory parity but also placed millions of passengers at heightened risk.
Policy shifts, or sudden introduction of new rules by the civil aviation ministry had in the past caused a hard landing for this sector, bleeding the aviation companies no end. Among the victims of this style of governance was the well-run Kingfisher airline, which ended up in huge losses and decimation of its existence. Its mascot, owner Vijay Mallya, indulged in loan repayment default, put the entire financial burden on Indian banks and scooted from the scene. He’s enjoying his life abroad. The UPA periods had seen massive corruption in the civil aviation sector, with an NCP minister messing up the aviation front by extending undue favours to foreign airlines on Indian skies and allegedly making huge gains for himself. Now, the government, rather than shifting the blame for the present crisis on the company’s CEO, a foreigner, must rather own up the blame for this massive aviation sector disruption.
