On a normal day, India’s skies carry more than 450,000 domestic passengers—students, migrant workers, business travellers, families, medical patients, and countless others who rely on aviation not as a luxury but as infrastructure. And then came the week when that infrastructure collapsed. From Mumbai to Delhi, Bengaluru to Hyderabad, people stood bewildered before airport departure boards glowing with a forest of red cancellations.
In the sweltering chaos of India’s busiest airports, a nightmare unfolded this week that no passenger could have anticipated. Picture this: a young bride, her lehenga crumpled from hours of waiting, sobbing as her flight to her wedding in Jaipur evaporates into thin air. An elderly man, clutching a faded photo of his ailing wife, collapses in exhaustion after being shuttled between counters at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, only to learn his ticket home is worthless. A jobless graduate, clutching his resume like a lifeline, misses his crucial interview in Mumbai because IndiGo – India’s self-proclaimed “reliable” low-cost carrier – decided that corporate greed trumped human dignity. These aren’t isolated tragedies; they’re the human cost of IndiGo’s brazen operational implosion, which saw over 1,000 flights cancelled in a single day on December 5, stranding tens of thousands during the peak wedding and holiday season.
A Corporate Failure, Not an Act of God
This isn’t just a glitch in the system. It’s a seismic failure – unprecedented in global aviation history – where a single airline, commanding 60% of India’s domestic market, held an entire nation’s mobility hostage. IndiGo, the darling of investors and the go-to for budget-conscious flyers, has revealed itself as a house of cards built on exploitative labour practices, short-sighted expansion, and a contemptuous disregard for the very regulations designed to prevent mid-air disasters.
This was not bad weather or heavy fog. Not an air-traffic system failure. Not a once-in-a-century cyclone or volcanic eruption. Nothing beyond their control.
- This was ‘operational’ mismanagement.
- This was breach of contract.
- This was a private company collapsing under the weight of its own choices and then expecting the public to pay the price.
India has never seen anything like this—and no major airline anywhere in the world has ever cancelled flights on this scale for reasons so self-inflicted. The question now is simple:
- Should an airline that fails so catastrophically be allowed to continue operating without penalty?
The answer, if India is serious about passenger rights, aviation safety, and the rule of law, must be NO.
What happened?
IndiGo’s meltdown began quietly and then accelerated like a runaway aircraft on a wet runway. The airline had been struggling with crew planning for months, insiders said. Flight delays and last-minute cancellations had become common. But as India began rolling out new pilot fatigue-management rules—rules designed to protect passengers from sleepy pilots landing at night, rules that every responsible airline must implement—the carrier’s thin operational margins snapped. Suddenly IndiGo didn’t have enough pilots rested and available to legally operate its own schedule. And then the dominos fell: day after day, wave after wave of cancellations.
How IndiGo’s attempt at manipulating Narrative collapses
Once the cancellations reached crisis levels, the airline scrambled to construct a narrative that would portray its failure as something unfortunate, external, nearly natural.
(a) “The new pilot rest rules caught us off guard.”: This explanation collapses instantly on examination.The rules were known months in advance. Every airline was aware of them. Every airline had the same information. Only IndiGo collapsed on this scale.
The fatigue-management framework was also not arbitrary. It was based on decades of global research showing that tired pilots make disastrous decisions, especially during night operations. To imply, as IndiGo effectively did, that its operations depended on pilots flying under severe fatigue is not an excuse—it is an admission of dangerous practice.
A responsible airline plans for safety requirements. IndiGo planned to run ultra-thin. It backfired. That is not regulation’s fault; that is management failure.
(b) “High fuel prices, high airport charges, government taxation…”: This is sleight of hand of the oldest corporate variety.All these costs existed when IndiGo was making profits. All these costs existed when IndiGo expanded aggressively. All these costs existed the day IndiGo was founded.No “surprises” were sprung upon the airline.
Running a business involves fixed and variable costs. If IndiGo chose to operate at low fares to crush competition and dominate market share, that was a commercial strategy—not charity for the travelling public. It cannot now complain that its own commercial choices have consequences.
(c) “We don’t have enough pilots—it’s a manpower shortage.”: This is the most absurd explanation of all. If a restaurant owner claims, “We don’t have enough cooks,” customers will laugh. If a taxi operator says, “We don’t have enough drivers,” regulators will act. If a hospital says, “We don’t have enough doctors,” authorities intervene.
- The shortage of pilots is IndiGo’s problem alone.
- It is not the government’s job to fill its cockpit seats.
- It is certainly not the passengers’ burden to bear.
- If IndiGo failed to hire, train, retain, or roster pilots properly, it cannot escape accountability.
Platform X witnessed a large number of posts in support of IndiGo—in this country with its history of the corporate sector paying influencers to manipulate narrative, you do know how such posts surface. Some sought to shame the agitated passengers for venting out their frustration on lowly front desk employees. They said, the passengers must seek the top management. Duffers, where do they find the top management? It went into hiding. Some sought to blame the government instead. Sample this:
India is not a land of failed airlines.
India is a land where airlines are engineered to fail.
The six bullets that keep killing indian airlines
Let’s list the murder weapons plainly:
Aircraft Turbo Fuel- ATF taxes among the highest in the world.
Airport charges that would make even Heathrow blush.
A hyper–price-sensitive market that forces fares below cost.
Weak balance sheets bleeding from day one.
Regulatory bottlenecks that treat aviation like punishment in a Nazi Concentration Camp.
And rupee depreciation — costs in dollars, revenue in Indian sympathy.
India is a graveyard of airlines not because Indians don’t fly, but because the economics are designed for obituary writing.
There Is No Way IndiGo Can Escape Blame
IndiGo’s contrived defence is plain and simple bullshit. If they are finding the operating costs to be high, who the hell forced them to run an airline? They could have opened a pakora shop instead.
The simple fact is that if they kept the fares low, it was to stay afloat in a competitive business, not out of any mercy on the poor Indian public. The government did not put a price cap on the fares. It was your business choice. No one forced them to operate an airline.
No surprises were sprung on you. All those constraints regarding ATF taxes and airport charges etc. were known to you when you started the airline. You cannot blame the government in retrospect.
An argument that the government imposed conditions about rest to the pilots and they do not have enough pilots, which led to the crisis, is not just absurd, it is criminal. If they don’t have enough pilots, it is their problem. You did not hire enough number of pilots because you were bent upon saving money. Why should the passengers suffer for it? Moreover, Omigosh, how can they insist that they would fly with fatigued pilots and place the lives of hundreds of thousands of people at risk?
Greed, Overexpansion, and Operational Thinness
India’s aviation sector is brutal—thin margins, intense competition, volatile fuel prices. But IndiGo had, for years, turned this landscape to its advantage through a ruthless low-cost model. The airline flew more sectors per aircraft per day than anyone else. Turnaround times were some of the fastest in the world. Crew were pushed to peak utilization. Scheduling was tight. Maintenance windows were narrow. Rosters were squeezed.
In good times, this produced profits. In bad times, this produced collapse. IndiGo built a business model with no margin for error—and then acted surprised when error arrived.
IndiGo’s License must be suspended if not cancelled outright
I am firmly of the view that IndiGo must not be allowed to slither away from this catastrophe. This is a blatant breach of contract, a violation of public trust, and a moral abomination. Refunds? A slap on the wrist. Refunds are plain bullshit. It is a simple breach of contract. They have failed to deliver a service, which they had promised to deliver as per the contract which comes into force as soon as a passenger buys a ticket. That they would refund the money is legally not enough. A hospital cannot botch up a surgery and then offer to refund the money.
A refund may settle the financial transaction. It does not settle the breach of trust. Nor does it settle the losses that can never be monetised.
Consider: a cancer patient missing critical treatment; a student losing a once-a-year competitive exam; families unable to reach dying relatives; loss of job opportunities; prepaid hotel bookings forfeited; or weddings derailed—events that are financially and emotionally enormous. No refund can cover such loss.
In consumer protection theory, remedies exist because refunds alone are inadequate deterrents. If a company knows that worst-case scenario is “give the money back,” it has no incentive to maintain operational reliability. IndiGo’s crisis illustrates exactly this moral hazard.
Under Indian contract law, as under most global frameworks, exceptions to performance obligations exist only for events that are:
- Unforeseeable
- Unavoidable
- Beyond the party’s control
- Not caused by its own negligence
Nothing about IndiGo’s crisis meets these criteria.
- Pilot rest rules were foreseeable.
- Crew planning was within IndiGo’s control.
- Hiring shortages were IndiGo’s responsibility.
- Maintenance issues were IndiGo’s responsibility.
- Overexpansion was IndiGo’s choice.
- Tight schedules were IndiGo’s design.
Therefore, this is not force majeure. This is breach of contract. The remedy for breach is not merely refund. It is damages, penalties, and—where negligence is systemic—regulatory action.
Airlines aren’t charities; they’re profit machines masquerading as essential services. When they fail, as IndiGo has spectacularly done, the fallout isn’t abstract numbers on a spreadsheet; it’s real people ground to dust. And for such egregious negligence, the only fitting response is punitive: massive fines, forced compensation funds, and yes, the suspension/revocation of their operating license.
Let this be the reckoning that dismantles IndiGo’s monopoly and rebuilds Indian aviation on the pillars of accountability and safety.
What needs to be done?
If India wishes to prevent a repeat, if it wants airlines to fear breaching obligations to passengers, the government must act with severity, clarity, and purpose.
A Full, Independent Inquiry into IndiGo’s Failure: Not an internal review.Not a polite conversation.Not a closed-door “understanding.”
A judicial or quasi-judicial inquiry, with: subpoena powers; examination of rosters; maintenance logs; crew training schedules; and communication with DGCA. The report must be made public if ti has to have any credibility.
Heavy, Exemplary Financial Penalties: Not token fines. Penalties must be:proportional to the scale of failure; larger than any amount IndiGo saved by cutting corners; and painful enough to deter the entire sector.
Compensatory Mandates for Affected Passengers: IndiGo must move beyond refunds.Compensation must include:reimbursement of hotel/transport losses; compensation for missed medical or academic events (where evidenced); free rescheduling; statutory damages for inconvenience. Passengers suffered extraordinary losses; the airline must bear extraordinary liabilities.
Operational Restrictions until IndiGo Proves Reliability: The DGCA should place IndiGo on operational watch; audit crew rostering weekly; examine maintenance logs; freeze new route permissions until compliance proven; limit slot allocations if necessary.
Suspension/cancellation of License: Aviation licenses are granted on the condition that airlines:
- operate safely
- operate reliably
- honour contractual obligations
If the inquiry finds that: IndiGo knowingly scheduled operations beyond crew capacity; ignored fatigue risks; misrepresented rostering realities; or compromised safety, then license suspension or revocation must necessarily be considered.
- Not for revenge.
- Not for drama.
- But as the ultimate enforcement of public interest.
When an airline’s failure threatens the integrity of national aviation, the state must be willing to act decisively.
Never forget: a company that collapses once can collapse again. Trust must be earned—not assumed.
The country will regret letting them go unpunished
IndiGo has blackmailed the whole nation. They must not go unpunished. Most regrettably, it is reported that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has partially caved, granting temporary exemptions to these safety rules under the flimsy pretext of “operational stability.” This isn’t relief; it’s surrender to corporate bullying, endangering lives for the sake of IndiGo’s balance sheet.
Faced with passenger outrage and national embarrassment, the government is reported to have temporarily suspended the very rest rules that were designed to protect passengers’ lives. This is not regulation. This is regulatory capitulation.
India now faces a deeply troubling paradox: An airline failed because it did not follow safety planning—and the government responded by weakening safety rules. This sends a wrong signal to every operator in the country: If you want regulations softened, just threaten a nationwide meltdown.
The unprecedented cancellation of nearly a thousand IndiGo flights wasn’t a natural disaster. It was corporate negligence on a national scale. India must now decide whether airline licences are privileges—or entitlements to be abused.
