It was waiting to happen. The June 2025 Ahmedabad crash of an Air India flight, which killed 260
people, and IndiGo's catastrophic operational breakdown — which alone erased Rs 37,000 crore in
market cap in December — reflected a deeper problem impacting both airlines, which had made the
position of their respective CEOs untenable.
Within a month, both Campbell Wilson of Air India and Pieter Elbers of IndiGo were gone, casualties
of a sector where the margin for error at the top is less.
In the case of IndiGo, several issues pointed directly at the inefficiency of top management. Reports
about near-misses in the air, an increasingly fragile crew, whistleblowers accusing management of
unsafe, fatigue-inducing rosters, and the regulator issuing a show-cause notice to CEO Pieter Elbers
over planning and oversight lapses kept adding up.
pointing out that pilot fatigue at IndiGo had reached impairment levels comparable to flying after
consuming alcohol above legal limits. Surveys of pilots indicated that they experienced excessive
daytime sleepiness and were forced to fly despite feeling too fatigued; there were also reports that
one pilot was dismissed after reporting fatigue.
When the airline management failed to prepare for the new Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL)
effective from November 1, 2025, the consequences were catastrophic, with hundreds of flights
cancelled. The airline's biggest asset — its loyal customer base — was left blindsided as it ran a
schedule it simply could not legally operate. It had not recruited enough pilots or made
timely changes to rosters to incorporate FDTL norms, and published a winter schedule that could not
be implemented under the new duty-time and rest limits.
Once the norms came into effect, the crisis hit the roof, leading to a "schedule meltdown" with 4,500–
5,500 cancellations over about 10 days and on-time performance dropping to around 4%, causing
massive hardship for passengers. The DGCA's show-cause notice made it clear that the "primary
cause" of the disruption was IndiGo's "non-provisioning of adequate arrangements" to meet the
revised FDTL requirements — a failure of manpower planning, rostering and operational
preparedness for safety-driven rules that had been signalled well in advance. The airline kept
assuring passengers and stakeholders that it was in control of the situation. The December crisis
proved otherwise.
13/04/2026 K Giriprakash/Deccan Herald
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