This marked a stark difference from Saturday, with IndiGo operating on a drastic cutback with just over 700 flights. The carrier initiated a planned “reboot” to stabilise rosters and systems after severe disruptions that left thousands of passengers stranded across airports.
It is pertinent to note that the recovery efforts are coming amid strong political criticism and regulatory scrutiny. In light of the flight disruption, DCGA has served a show cause notice to the airline’s CEO, Pieter Elbers and Accountable Manager, Isidro Porqueras, over large-scale operational lapses.
IndiGo faces government scrutiny
Amidst the chaos, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu on Saturday said that a committee has been established to identify the reasons behind the flight disruptions caused by the IndiGo airlines, adding that “necessary actions” would be taken against those accountable for the chaos accordingly.
“We have formed a committee which will inquire into all this so that they can establish where things went wrong and who did it wrong. We are going to take necessary action on that also. This thing shouldn’t be left unattended,” Naidu told ANI on Saturday. His remarks on the matter came amid the unprecedented disruption in air services across the country over the last six days caused by the large-scale cancellation and delay of IndiGo flights.
Naidu told ANI that the current priority is to ensure that the flight operation comes back to normalcy. “The immediate priority for us is to bring back normalcy and provide all the support to the passengers. Today, in the country, if you see, 5 lakh people are travelling by air every day," he averred.
Apart from this, the civil aviation ministry has introduced limits on the maximum fare charges that other airlines can charge in this situation. “It has come to the notice of the Central Government that disruptions in flight operations of one of the scheduled airlines have resulted in flight cancellations, leading to capacity constraints and an unreasonable surge in the fares on several sectors,” the ministry said in a statement.
Flights of 500 km distance will have a maximum fare of Rs 7,500, flights between 500–1000 km have a cap of Rs 12,000, flights between 1000–1500 km are capped at Rs 15,000, while flights with a length of over 1500 km have been capped at a fare of Rs 18,000. However, the fares mentioned above are exclusive of applicable user development fee, passenger service fee and taxes and do not apply to Business class and to RCS UDAAN flights.
