It has now been a week since the IndiGo crisis snowballed into unprecedented grounding for the entire network. The largest airline in the country with a 65% market share came on its knees as it was woefully short of pilots to fulfil its committed schedule which the regulator had approved. From Kingfisher to Jet Airways and SpiceJet, the crisis affected thousands because of the size of the airlines. In the case of IndiGo, it affected over a million in a week long period, not to mention the delays and cancellations of November, which only came out when this crisis began.
As the chaos took over, fights erupted at the counters, passengers were helpless with seats not available on other flights, and when available at astronomical rates until the Ministry stepped in. An organisation known for a razor sharp focus on everything from routes to revenue, it is hard to believe that it did not have a focus on the pilot numbers. More often than not at public gatherings, its CEO Pieter Elbers has used the term “Ho Jaega” , the very attitude that possibly led to the unmitigated collapse of a reputation built over 19 years, gone in 19 hours.It is clear that the system was under fatigue for a very long time. Not just the pilots, but also the ground staff. The famed fast turnaround wasn’t happening as fast. The airline was the single largest player in the world for Airbus deliveries last year. It has doubled its fleet from pre-COVID to now, the hyper growth it was experiencing and the processes to handle this was clearly out of sync. The fatigue is visible when the airport staff was announcing “missing pilots” as the reason for delays, which used to be otherwise hidden behind “operational reasons” without elaborating. Turn by turn, everybody had given up and gone about their daily work.
As the government scrambled to get things in order, the regular stepped in with a show cause notice and the airline itself started periodic updates on how it is rebooting its network, has a crisis management team setup amongst other things, the passenger remained hanging, running from pillar to post to find another flight, accommodation, refund or just get his or her check-in baggage back from the airline. Stories of newly wed couples joining their reception via video call, passengers missing funerals, school students stuck at airports, important interviews and meetings being missed started becoming viral. The crisis did not see either the regulator or the government step in immediately. The crisis started on December 2, with the peak on December 5. The fare caps came late evening on December 6, a good four days after the crisis. With a 65% market share and average 5 lakh passengers per day which was the norm over the last few weeks, around 3 lakh passengers a day were getting impacted with over 10 lakh already impacted when the government decided to step in. The case of too little too late continued since then.
As passengers kept crowding at airports, the passenger charter was not worth more than the paper on which it was written. Refreshments, hotels, transfers, compensation remained just words as staff and passengers sparred. Different view points started emerging and each was countered. From being a fixed match, to why yell at the ground staff the narratives, counter narratives, rumours and letters continued at regular intervals. While the debate goes on about if this was a fixed match, or if anything would at all be done or if the committee would have powers to investigate in detail; another set of rumour mills keep buzzing about who will stay and who will leave.
In the end, there are two things which remain the ultimate truth, passengers were left hanging to their own peril and everyone from the airline, which built its image as “dependable”, to regulator failed to address the immediate passenger concerns and IndiGo having not acted on the lead time it had to build its strength to adjust to the new FDTL rules, hoping that they would never be implemented or if they would it would still get more time, until the court ruling sealed the deal but it was too late. This still leaves us with one factor, with rosters being available at a click of the button, various scenarios can be run and would have been run. Why did the airline not cancel a bunch of flights proactively rather than waiting for the final collapse which has never happened in India for a well capitalised airline? The answer, if at all, is what the fact finding committee should look for.
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