The IndiGo top management has been called in for Thursday’s meeting a day after the government ordered a 10 per cent curtailment in IndiGo’s schedule. The decision was communicated by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on Tuesday following a meeting with Elbers, who was “summoned” to the ministry to provide an update on the airline’s stabilisation measures. Earlier, the DGCA had ordered the airline to curtail its schedule by 5 per cent, but MoCA doubled that to 10 per cent.

IndiGo is India’s largest airline with a domestic market share of nearly 65 per cent, and its schedule has over 2,300 daily flights, around 2,150 of which are domestic flights. A 10 per cent curtailment in domestic flights would mean that the airline’s daily scheduled flights within the country would come down to less than 1,950. IndiGo is currently operating a lower number of flights than that. Sources close to the airline said that IndiGo was looking to gradually increase its flights to its regular levels over the next few days. But it will now have to abide by the schedule curtailment ordered by the government. The freed-up slots may be offered to other carriers if they have additional capacity that can be deployed.

In a statement on Tuesday, IndiGo announced that its operations have stabilised and normalised. IndiGo operated over 1,800 flights on Tuesday, operating to all destinations on its network, and its on-time performance (OTP) is back at over 80 per cent. The airline expects to operate around 1,900 flights on Wednesday. Friday was the worst day of the disruption with over 1,600 flight cancellations, but the situation has steadily improved since.

The airline’s weekly domestic flights had increased to 15,014 in the winter schedule, which took effect from October 26, from 14,158 weekly flights in this year’s summer schedule. IndiGo, however, faced crew shortages, primarily due to its inadequate preparation for the second phase of the new crew rest and duty norms that took effect on November 1. This led to widespread network-wide disruption in the airline’s operations. In view of the disruption, which brought India’s aviation ecosystem to its knees, pilot associations and aviation experts strongly criticised and questioned the DGCA’s earlier decision to allow an increase in flights in the airline’s winter schedule.

According to the regulator, on Thursday the airline will provide it with details on the status of ongoing flight restoration across the IndiGo network, progress in re-accommodating affected passengers, priority handling of vulnerable passengers, and monitoring mechanism to ensure timely completion of flight restoration. The IndiGo management leadership will also present the updated position of pilot and cabin crew strength, recruitment and training pipeline for upcoming months, measures taken to prevent roster shortages and Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules-related issues.

Updates on the number of flights cancelled, refunds processed, refund turnaround timelines for direct and online travel agency bookings, and compliance with other passenger services-related rules will also be shared. The carrier has also been directed to share updates on delayed or misrouted baggage cases, steps taken for tracing and returning baggage, average timelines and compensation provided as per regulations, performance of SMS and email alert systems for updating passengers, steps to improve timely communication about delays and cancellations, and strengthened coordination between the airline’s Operation Control Centre (OCC), airports, and customer support.

The new FDTL rules stipulate more rest for pilots and rationalisation of their flying duties—particularly late night operations—in a bid to better manage pilot fatigue, which is a key risk to aviation safety. These new norms, which were stipulated in January last year were delayed in their implementation, and took effect in two phase—from July 1 and November 1—with the second phase rollout hitting IndiGo considerably. The new norms meant that airlines either had to have more pilots to maintain their schedule, or curtail their schedules in line with the new requirements.

In review meetings, IndiGo accepted that that the disruptions “have arisen primarily from misjudgement and planning gaps in implementing” the second phase of new FDTL rules, with the airline saying that the actual crew requirement for the new rules exceeded what it had anticipated, as per the DGCA. Given the scale of the disruption, the DGCA on Friday granted IndiGo a temporary one-time exemption from some night operations-related changes in the new FDTL norms for its Airbus A320 pilots. The temporary rollback, which will be in place till February 10, is likely to help IndiGo to get its act together and stabilise operations from heron. The DGCA has also granted a few other temporary relaxations to IndiGo.

But the government and the regulator have turned up the heat on IndiGo with the initiation of an inquiry by a DGCA panel into the disruption. The regulator also issued show cause notices to the airline’s chief executive officer Pieter Elbers and its chief operating officer Isidre Porqueras. Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu has blamed lapses on IndiGo’s part for the disruption and said that strict action will be taken on the basis of the inquiry report to “set an example”. He said that sufficient notice was given by the DGCA to all airlines for the implementation of the new FDTL rules.