New Delhi : Days after hundreds of IndiGo flights were cancelled across the country, crippling air travel in many major cities and troubling passengers, Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu blamed the airlines for the chaos. IndiGo services stabilised by Wednesday with no further unusually high number of flight cancellations, concerns remained around airline operations, with passengers wary of air travel. But the minister said that the crisis could have been avoided and came as a surprise.
The crisis was a result of gross mismanagement by IndiGo only. There was some anomaly with their internal crew rostering system, which could have been avoided in compliance with the new norms under the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) guidelines, which unfortunately did not happen, he said. This is the reason why we saw the domino effect of flight cancellations on December 3 and 4.
The minister has previously maintained that the flight disruption stemmed from IndiGo’s miscalculation of pilot workforce requirements under the new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules, implemented in November 2025. The new FDTL norms became applicable on November 1. We had been in constant touch with the airline over the few usual cancellations.
Naidu, who has already ordered an inquiry into the crisis and promised to hold the guilty party accountable, further clarified that his ministry held a key meeting with IndiGo on December 1, trying to know if they had any problem or concern with the new norms. “They never mentioned that they had any issue at all”. “We were quite watchful and were taking care of all the operational oversight, and ensuring that things were normal. We also gave them multiple opportunities had there been an incident like this, you can come to us and discuss it,” he pointed out.
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