Arise Bharat

By: Kuldeep Jha

The profiteering impulse of corporate capitalism and the interventionist reflex of the Socialist regulatory mindset have together engineered the perfect storm in Indian aviation. It is against this backdrop that the meltdown at IndiGo in late 2025 must be understood.

In the aftermath of India’s worst aviation disruption in recent memory, a startling allegation has emerged from within the cockpit community. According to a former IndiGo captain, the massive disruption of November–December 2025 was not merely the consequence of mismanagement, technological failure or regulatory oversight gaps.

He alleges it was a crisis that was ‘wilfully allowed to spiral’ to force a rollback of the newly implemented Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) regime. The crisis uncannily coincided with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state visit to India.

“IndiGo knew exactly where the system was headed,” he says. “They knew they didn’t have the pilots for the new FDTL norms. They knew SmartLynx was collapsing. And they still pushed an impossible winter schedule. The only explanation is that the chaos suited them.”

His accusation centres on a series of interconnected failures that now appear far less accidental than they did in the early days of the collapse. The first shock hit on October 24, when SmartLynx—IndiGo’s wet-lease partner operating 11 aircraft—filed for bankruptcy protection. Those 11 A320s flew nearly 150 daily flights, and their loss instantly destabilised IndiGo’s capacity planning. Yet instead of trimming schedules, the airline proceeded with a winter timetable that was 900 flights per week heavier than the summer season.

Pilots repeatedly flagged that rosters were “fractured,” “unrealistic,” and incompatible with the new FDTL regulations, which mandated more rest and better fatigue management.

Despite having had two years to prepare for these rules, IndiGo’s aircraft-to-pilot ratio remained one of the lowest in the industry.

According to insiders, the new FDTL regime would significantly strain the airline’s balance sheet unless staffing was increased—something the airline was reluctant to do.

As November progressed, cancellations mounted—over 1,200 by month’s end—yet no major intervention came from DGCA or the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Then, in early December, IndiGo’s operations backbone, the HOTAS system, collapsed outright. Communication between the operations control centre, crew tracking, logistics, and airport teams broke down simultaneously.

The airline could not locate many of its own pilots. Some were stranded in hotels, others stuck in transit, others waiting helplessly in crew rooms unable to receive duties. Several were forced to pay out-of-pocket for layover hotels and transportation, something unheard of at IndiGo.

Passengers, meanwhile, received almost no information. Between December 1 and 5, the airline issued no clear warnings regarding cancellations, delays, crew shortages or the internal systems breakdown. The result was swelling, distressed crowds at airports across the country. People slept on terminal floors, queued in futile lines at non-functional counters, and refreshed dead apps in desperation. The ex-captain argues that this communication blackout was not merely a failure—it was an escalation tactic.

“They let the chaos build,” he alleges. “They knew the media would beam these visuals non-stop, especially during a high-profile diplomatic week. The timing was perfect for maximum pressure.”

As delays cascaded into cancellations and key operations teams lost all functional control, the entire aviation grid began to suffocate. Airside coaches were not deployed even for flights with full crew present. Ground operations stalled. Crew logistics broke down. Pilots could not be reached because the airline had no backup to the 6eskAI digital systems. Some departments, insiders say, were critically understaffed at the worst possible moment.

The absence of immediate national support deepened the crisis. Despite the collapse of a carrier that operates nearly 65% of India’s domestic flights, neither Air India’s widebody fleet nor Indian Air Force transport aircraft nor augmented rail or state road transport systems were mobilised to rescue stranded passengers. For many aviation professionals, this exposed a glaring absence of contingency protocols in a country disproportionately dependent on a single airline.

DGCA’s Dubious Role

In this entire episode, a special chapter must be reserved for the regulator—DGCA—whose actions and inactions amplified the crisis rather than preventing it.

When the new FDTL norms were announced in late 2023, airlines were given ample notice to prepare.

The new rules were unambiguous: pilots would require 48 consecutive hours of rest, the definition of night duty would extend to 6:00 AM, no pilot could perform more than two night landings or more than two consecutive night duties, and quarterly fatigue data would mandate roster adjustments. All of this was known to IndiGo. All of it was predictable. Yet, the airline ramped up schedules instead of building staffing buffers.

The DGCA’s responsibility was not merely to announce these rules but to ensure their preparedness and implementation across the industry, especially at IndiGo—which, with its near-monopolistic market share, posed the highest systemic risk. On this front, the regulator failed spectacularly.

Compounding concerns over regulatory capture is IndiGo’s hiring of a retired senior civil aviation secretary several years ago. Insiders allege his influence was instrumental in securing repeated relaxations and exemptions from DGCA and the Ministry. Even during the meltdown, IndiGo appeared confident he would deliver—and he did. Within days, the airline secured yet another exemption from the FDTL norms, valid until February, effectively undoing the very fatigue protections introduced for pilot and passenger safety.

Critics argue this relationship must be investigated.

A watchdog is meant to protect passengers, not shield the dominant player. Yet DGCA’s actions in recent years suggest it may have internalised the responsibility of safeguarding IndiGo’s monopoly rather than the aviation ecosystem.

For instance, instead of addressing pilot fatigue, work conditions, or attrition, the DGCA urged ICAO to create global anti-poaching norms—effectively trapping IndiGo pilots in their jobs and limiting their options elsewhere. Further, IndiGo was allowed to impose a six-month notice period on pilots, a practice virtually unheard of globally and one that rendered pilots practically unemployable in competing airlines.

The ex-captain argues: “Whose interests were these rules designed to protect? The pilots? The passengers? Or IndiGo’s market domination?”

The Need for Accountability & Reform

The ex-captain believes the entire sequence—SmartLynx collapse, inflated winter schedules, insufficient pilot staffing, broken communication systems, a total HOTAS failure, DGCA’s regulatory silence, and a prolonged blackout toward passengers—must be investigated not as isolated missteps, but as a connected chain of events that may reveal intentional brinkmanship.

He is calling for sweeping accountability beginning with IndiGo’s top management. Those responsible for scheduling decisions, pilot forecasting errors, operational planning, crisis response, and passenger communication should, he says, be immediately removed. He argues that only a criminal investigation can uncover whether the collapse was wilfully engineered. He demands FIRs, a CBI-led probe, and arrests if evidence of conspiracy, fraud or deliberate dereliction emerges.

Passengers, he insists, must not be forgotten. He supports a government-mandated, EU-style compensation regime offering reimbursement for delays, cancellations, food, lodging, rebooking, missed connections, and all out-of-pocket expenses. “If passengers were used as leverage, even indirectly, there must be restitution,” he says.

His critique extends beyond the airline. DGCA, he argues, failed to anticipate IndiGo’s inability to comply with FDTL transitions, approved an impossible winter schedule, ignored early-warning signs from November, and did not intervene before the collapse. He calls for DGCA’s structural overhaul, including decentralisation of key functions to prevent single-point failures.

He also urges the Competition Commission of India to investigate IndiGo’s 68% market share and assess the risks of duopolistic dominance. In a system where one airline holds the nation’s aviation network in its grasp, any single failure becomes a national disaster.

Central to his recommendations is the creation of a National Aviation Contingency Framework—a legally binding protocol governing roles for airlines, regulators, airports, and government bodies during major disruptions.

He argues that Air India, the IAF, Indian Railways, and state transport fleets should automatically be deployed during such collapses, rather than left idle.

Finally, he calls for a PMO-supervised, impartial investigation into the entire episode—from IndiGo’s internal decisions and DGCA’s approvals to any evidence of collusion or concealment. He believes the Civil Aviation Minister should temporarily step aside to ensure neutrality. “Aviation safety is not political. It is national integrity,” he says.

To him, the IndiGo meltdown was not a lightning strike. It was a convergence of structural weaknesses, operational misjudgments, inadequate staffing, technological fragility, regulatory lapses, and—possibly—deliberate escalation. Only transparent investigation, structural correction, and uncompromising safety standards can ensure that such a collapse never again paralyses the country—nor leaves millions of travellers as pawns in a battle between an airline and the Indian state.