Indigo fiasco in light of DGCA Regulations

By – Kaushiki and Tannishtha Chatterjee

Table of Contents

Introduction

The recent operational crisis at IndiGo Airlines marks a defining moment for India’s civil aviation ecosystem, not merely because of the scale of disruption but because it exposes structural fault lines in regulatory compliance, airline governance, and enforcement philosophy under the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (“DGCA”). What unfolded was not an isolated scheduling failure or a routine operational hiccup; it was a systemic breakdown that brought into sharp focus the consequences of misalignment between regulatory mandates and commercial execution.

At the heart of the crisis lay the implementation of revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (“FDTL”) and fatigue management norms prescribed by the DGCA. These regulations, framed under the Aircraft Act, 1934 and the Aircraft Rules, 1937, are rooted in a safety-first approach that recognizes pilot fatigue as a latent but serious risk to flight safety. Aviation safety jurisprudence globally treats fatigue not as an operational inconvenience but as a hazard comparable to mechanical failure. The DGCA’s revised norms, therefore, were not regulatory overreach but a long-overdue recalibration towards international best practices.

The difficulty, however, arose in the manner in which IndiGo structured its operations around a business model that relies heavily on high aircraft utilisation, tight crew rostering, and minimal buffer margins. Such a model can coexist with safety regulation only if manpower planning, roster systems, and contingency mechanisms evolve simultaneously. The crisis demonstrated that compliance with fatigue regulations cannot be achieved through incremental adjustments; it requires structural redesign of operational planning. IndiGo’s inability to transition smoothly indicates not a sudden regulatory shock, but a prolonged underestimation of regulatory impact.

DGCA Regulations: What has changed?

The DGCA had notified the revised Flight Duty Time Limitations, in stages between 2023 and 2025 but they were brought into full legal force from 01.11.2025 through amendments to Section 7, Series J, Part III of the Civil Aviation Requirements (“CAR”), which governs how long and how often pilots may lawfully operate aircraft. These changes were not cosmetic. They fundamentally altered the way airlines could deploy pilots, particularly in high-intensity networks such as IndiGo’s.

Revised Weekly Rest Requirements

Under the earlier DGCA framework that applied until 31.10.2025, pilots were required to receive a minimum of 36 hours of continuous rest per week, meaning that even after six consecutive days of flying, a pilot could legally return to duty after just one and a half days off. Airlines were therefore able to roster pilots for long sequences of flights, including multiple night operations within the same week, aided by a narrow definition of night duty and considerable flexibility in converting leave, off days and standby into active flying duties. This allowed airlines, especially low-cost carriers like IndiGo, to keep aircraft flying almost continuously with a comparatively smaller pool of pilots. From 01.11.2025 however, the revised rules increased mandatory weekly rest to 48 hours of uninterrupted time off, effectively removing an additional flying day from each pilot’s monthly availability. Across a fleet with the size of IndiGo’s, this single change translated into the loss of thousands of crew hours every week.

Expansion of the Night Duty Window

An equally consequential shift was made in the regulation of night flying. Until October 2025, the DGCA defined the night period for fatigue regulation purposes as 00:00 hours to 05:00 hours, meaning that flights operating outside this narrow window were treated as normal daytime operations. The revised FDTL expanded the legally recognised night window to 00:00 hours to 06:00 hours, bringing a large number of early-morning departures within the scope of night duty regulation. This change was particularly significant for IndiGo, whose business model relies heavily on dense 5:30 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. schedules to maximise aircraft utilisation. Once these flights were reclassified as night operations, they became subject to much stricter fatigue controls, including sharply reduced limits on the number of night landings a pilot can perform in a week. As a result, pilots who had earlier flown into several late-night or early-morning sectors could now legally operate far fewer of them, even if their total flying time remained unchanged.

Reduction in Permissible Night Landings

Under the earlier regime, a pilot could perform up to six-night landings in a seven-day period. From 01.11.2025, this was reduced to two-night landings per week. This meant that a pilot who previously flew several late-night and early-morning legs in one week could now legally perform only two such operations before being mandatorily grounded for further night flying. Since IndiGo’s network is heavily weighted toward red-eye and early-morning flights, this rule alone eliminated a huge portion of its usable pilot hours.

Stricter Daily and Cumulative Duty Limits

The revised FDTL also tightened daily and cumulative duty limits. Previously, pilots could be rostered for long duty periods even when schedules extended into the night, provided overall flight time stayed within broad ceilings. The new framework imposes stricter caps whenever any part of a duty overlaps the night window, meaning that combinations of short flights, delays and night encroachment can now breach legal limits even when the actual flying time is relatively modest. 

Where did Indigo go wrong?

IndiGo went wrong primarily due to inadequate planning and preparation for the new DGCA rules on pilot rest and duty hours that came into effect from 01.11.2025. The airline misjudged pilot availability and had gaps in crew rostering, which led to severe operational failures, including crew being positioned at incorrect stations, pilots waiting without duty assignments, flight cancellations after baggage had already been transported, and a collapse of customer support systems. 

The airline failed to align its operational readiness with mandatory regulatory requirements in advance. Instead of ensuring sufficient pilot strength to comply with the new rules, IndiGo relied on reactive measures such as requesting exemptions from the DGCA and urging pilots to curtail or cancel leave. While factors like weather conditions, technical issues, and air traffic congestion contributed to the disruption, the root cause remained deficient compliance planning, which ultimately led to large-scale cancellations, regulatory intervention, and consumer impact.

Regulatory Response and Enforcement Challenges

From a legal standpoint, the DGCA regulations are unambiguous. Flight duty and rest requirements are mandatory conditions of operation, not discretionary guidelines. Airlines are expected to internalise these requirements into their scheduling algorithms, manpower projections, and seasonal capacity planning. The obligation is proactive, not reactive. Once the revised norms came into force, any roster that could not be lawfully operated under those norms was, by definition, non-compliant. In that sense, mass cancellations were not merely operational choices but a consequence of belated compliance.

Temporary Relaxations and Regulatory Consistency

The regulatory response to the crisis raises equally significant questions. Faced with widespread disruption, the DGCA opted to grant temporary relaxations and exemptions to IndiGo, effectively diluting the very safety norms whose enforcement had triggered the crisis. While regulators possess discretionary powers to issue exemptions in exceptional circumstances, the exercise of such discretion must be consistent with the object of the statute. Safety regulations occupy a higher normative plane than commercial convenience. When exemptions are granted primarily to restore schedules rather than to mitigate safety risk, the regulatory message becomes ambiguous and potentially corrosive.

This episode also brings into focus the doctrine of regulatory consistency. If safety norms are enforced strictly against smaller or less dominant operators but relaxed for a market leader due to systemic impact, the perception of unequal treatment becomes inevitable. In a sector where one airline commands a dominant market share, regulatory concessions carry economy-wide implications. The law does not recognise “too big to comply” as a valid category, and yet the crisis has sparked precisely that concern.

Passenger Rights and Consumer Protection Obligations

Equally troubling is the passenger rights dimension. DGCA regulations impose clear obligations on airlines in cases of cancellations and delays, including timely communication, re-accommodation, refunds, and care. Large-scale disruptions test not only operational resilience but also compliance with the regulations. When cancellations become systemic rather than sporadic, passenger protection obligations assume a quasi-public law of character. Failure to discharge them effectively erodes consumer confidence and invites scrutiny under both aviation and competition law frameworks.

Limits of Post-Crisis Regulatory Firefighting

The IndiGo episode also underscores the limits of ex post regulatory firefighting. Safety regulation in aviation is most effective when it is anticipatory rather than remedial. The DGCA had issued the revised norms with adequate notice, and the responsibility to align operations lay squarely with the airline. Once non-compliance manifests at scale, regulatory relaxations can only mask symptoms, not cure the underlying disease. Sustainable compliance requires enforcement of certainty and industry preparedness, not post-crisis of accommodations.

Legal action taken against Indigo

When flight cancellations began to spiral in the first week of December, the DGCA formally stepped in and, on 6.12.2025, issued a show-cause notice to IndiGo under the Aircraft Act and the Civil Aviation authority Requirements. This notice required the airline’s senior management to explain how a carrier that had been aware since 2023 of the phased introductions of the revised FDTL regime had nonetheless published and sold tickets for a winter schedule that was legally impossible to operate from 01.11.2025 onwards. The regulator’s concern was not limited to commercial inconvenience; it went to the heart of safety oversight, because an airline that cannot legally crew its flights risks pressuring pilots into fatigue violations, even if those violations are not immediately visible.

At the same time, the Ministry of Civil Aviation constituted a special inquiry panel to examine whether IndiGo had misrepresented its operational readiness while seeking approval for its winter schedule. Airlines are required under DGCA regulations to certify that their published schedules are compliant with crew availability and fatigue laws. The inquiry therefore raised a serious legal question: whether IndiGo had obtained regulatory approvals on the basis of staffing assumptions that it knew, or ought to have known, were inconsistent with the new FDTL regime that came into force on 1 November 2025.

The DGCA also exercised its statutory power to restrict IndiGo’s operations. After reviewing flight-operation data for November 2025, the regulator found that IndiGo had failed to operate a significant number of its approved flights due to crew shortages caused by the new fatigue limits. As a result, the DGCA directed the airline to reduce its winter schedule by 5% and submit a revised operational plan. This reduction was later tightened to a 10% cut in domestic capacity, effectively capping how many flights IndiGo was legally permitted to sell and operate. In regulatory terms, this was a punishment as well as a risk-containment measure, because it prevented the airline from continuing to sell tickets that it could not lawfully honour.

Passenger Refunds and Ministry Directions

Passenger protection laws were also triggered. Under the DGCA’s Civil Aviation Requirements on passenger rights, airlines are obligated to provide refunds, rescheduling, and assistance when flights are cancelled due to operational failures. When complaints mounted that IndiGo was slow in processing refunds and rebookings, the Ministry of Civil Aviation issued binding directions requiring the airline to clear all pending refunds by the evening of 07.12.2025 and to allow free rescheduling for affected passengers. These orders were not advisory; non-compliance would have exposed the airline to financial penalties and further regulatory action.

Litigations against IndiGo

Judicial scrutiny soon followed. A series of public interest litigations were filed before the Delhi High Court on behalf of stranded passengers, accusing both IndiGo and the regulatory authorities of allowing systemic violations of aviation law, arbitrary mass cancellations and a breakdown of consumer protection during one of the busiest travel periods of the year. A public interest writ petition, W.P.(C) 18718 of 2025, titled Akhil Rana & Anr. v. Union of India & Ors., was filed before the Delhi High Court by two practising advocates, raising serious concerns regarding mass flight cancellations, passenger hardship, and regulatory oversight failures.

During the hearing dated 10.12.2025, the Union of India and the DGCA explained that the crisis had precipitated due to non-compliance with the revised FDTL norms. The DGCA specifically informed the Court that IndiGo had failed to recruit an adequate number of pilots to ensure compliance with the revised FDTL norms, and that deficiencies in crew-rostering software systems may also have contributed to the disruption. The Court in the order dated 10.12.2025 noted that compliance with Civil Aviation Requirements issued by the DGCA is mandatory for all airlines operating in India. The Court took note of multiple regulatory actions taken after the crisis erupted. These included:

• Issuance of one-time exemptions and temporary relaxations by the DGCA on 5.12.2025, limited in duration and subject to periodic review;

• Constitution of a four-member inquiry committee headed by the Joint Director General of Civil Aviation to examine deficiencies in operational preparedness, manpower planning, rostering systems, and compliance with FDTL norms;

• Issuance of a show-cause notice dated 06.12.2025 to IndiGo under the Aircraft Rules, 1937 and applicable CARs for regulatory violations;

• Imposition of fare caps by the Ministry of Civil Aviation on 06.12.2025 to prevent unreasonable price surges by other airlines during the disruption period.

Referring to the DGCA’s circular dated 06.08.2010 on facilities and compensation to be provided to passengers in cases of denied boarding, cancellations, and delays, the Court expressly directed strict adherence to the compensation framework contained therein. It was also observed that passengers stranded due to large-scale cancellations must be compensated in accordance with law, and that the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the DGCA bear a responsibility to ensure enforcement of these obligations.

It is also important to mention that the Delhi High Court consciously refrained from making definitive findings on culpability at this stage. Given that a formal inquiry committee had already been constituted, the Court clarified that its observations were confined to public interest considerations and should not prejudice the outcome of ongoing regulatory proceedings. The matter has been listed for further hearing on 22.01.2026, with a direction that the inquiry committee’s report, if completed by then, be placed before the Court in a sealed cover. 

The Centre for Accounting and Systematic Change (“CASC”) also filed a PIL, W.P.(C) 19142 of 2025, praying for a direction to compel payment of compensation equivalent to four times the full ticket price to passengers whose flights had been cancelled. In addition, the petition sought a mandamus directing the Union of India to initiate class action proceedings under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 against IndiGo Airlines for award of damages. CASC also prayed for an independent inquiry, to be conducted by a retired Judge or the Lokpal, to examine alleged negligence and regulatory lapses on the part of the DGCA in preventing the crisis.

However, by order dated 17.12.2025, a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court declined to entertain this petition. The Court observed that the substance of the issues raised regulatory failure, operational chaos, and passenger rights was already being examined in W.P.(C) 18718 of 2025, before the court, and granted the petitioner liberty to intervene in that pending case instead of pursuing a separate compensation plea.

Supreme Court Intervention

The litigation also briefly reached the Supreme Court in Narendra Mishra v. Union of India & Ors., Writ Petition (Civil) No. 1232 of 2025, where urgent constitutional intervention was sought in light of the continuing disruption. The Supreme Court in terms of order dated 15.12.2025, took note of the fact that all substantive issues raised in the petition were already under active consideration before the Delhi High Court, including regulatory compliance, passenger grievances, and remedial measures. In view of this, the Supreme Court declined to entertain the petition independently. Instead, it directed that the petitioner be permitted to intervene in the pending Delhi High Court proceedings and raise all contentions sought to be advanced before the Supreme Court.

Investigation of Competition Commission of India

The Competition Commission of India (“CCI”), as the statutory authority under the Competition Act, 2002, ensures that enterprises with significant market power do not abuse their dominance to the detriment of consumers, a function that assumes heightened importance in concentrated sectors such as civil aviation. In this context, the CCI has taken cognizance of a complaint against IndiGo Airlines, India’s largest domestic carrier, vide its Press Release No. 94/2025-2026 dated 18.12.2025, arising from widespread flight disruptions in December 2025, wherein it was alleged that the airline engaged in exploitative conduct by sharply increasing airfares following large-scale cancellations, causing consumer hardship at a time when alternative options were limited.

Chronologically, the matter arose after IndiGo cancelled over 4,200 flights between December 1 and 9, disruptions that were linked to operational challenges stemming from the enforcement of stricter FDTL norms by the DGCA. In the aftermath of these cancellations, several passengers reported steep fare hikes on rebooked flights, with one consumer complaint alleging that ticket prices rose to nearly two-and-a-half times the original fare.

Based on the information placed before it, the CCI undertook an initial assessment and, in an official press release dated 18.12.2025, confirmed that it found sufficient grounds to proceed further under the Competition Act, 2002. The Commission formally acknowledged the complaint and decided to take the matter forward.

Allegations of Abuse of Dominance

The inquiry is understood to centre on potential abuse of dominance under Section 4 of the Competition Act, particularly in the nature of exploitative conduct. While the Act does not prohibit an enterprise from being dominant per se, it prohibits unfair or excessive pricing and other practices that exploit consumers. If an airline is found to have restricted supply and subsequently raised prices during the disruption, such conduct could attract scrutiny under Section 4. At the same time, issues relating to FDTL norms fall outside the CCI’s remit and remain within the jurisdiction of the DGCA.

Following its preliminary assessment, the CCI may, depending on its findings, direct its Director General to initiate a detailed investigation. The matter is expected to be listed for further consideration in April 2026.

Conclusion

The IndiGo episode shows that in civil aviation, regulatory compliance is not optional or secondary; it is central to safe and reliable operations. The revised FDTL norms were introduced well in advance and were based on clear safety considerations. The disruption that followed was therefore not caused by sudden regulation, but by a failure to adjust operational planning and manpower in time.

The episode also highlights the importance of consistency in regulatory enforcement. Temporary relaxations may provide short-term relief, but long-term stability depends on clear rules and their uniform application. For airlines, the lesson is straightforward: business models must be designed to absorb regulatory change, not resist it. Sustainable growth in aviation depends on planning for compliance, rather than reacting to it after problems arise.

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