IndiGo Breakdown Lessons For Indian Aviation Passenger Rights & DGCA

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Hello and welcome to The Core Report's weekend edition. Now, it's been a very messy 10 to 12 days with the operations of Indigo Airlines going into complete chaos.

Now, we all know the details and I'm not going to get into it except that there are two or three key issues that came up. One is of course the fact that the airline knew about or would have known about the changes in flight duty time limits or the amount of time pilots actually spend flying the aircraft which were to change on the 1st of November. They should have prepared for it but they did not and that created a cascading set of problems which obviously led to all the operational mess which saw thousands of flights being cancelled, tens of thousands of passengers being affected and of course a lot of money being lost including in hotel bookings and so on.

So, that's what's happened. It also perhaps was the largest such case of an airline's operations going awry for really internal reasons in recent history that I can think of including in Indian aviation but even globally. So now, we seem to have learned some lessons.

Remember, Indigo has more than 64% of market share and therefore everything that it does or does not do becomes critical to the very functioning of the Indian airline and aviation industry. So, the question really is as we look ahead, what are the big or the key lessons that we can take away from what we've seen in the last week or 10 days and this is across two or three key areas. One is of course safety itself and that's really the first one in some ways.

Secondly, can airlines be profitable? Was Indigo trying to do something that it could not have done if it had not cut the corners and that's in a way a frightening thought but we should address it and thirdly, what should airlines do differently from here on? We're talking about Indian airlines right now.

Here on to make sure that something like this does not happen including in the context of keeping passengers safe and secure not just from a safety point of view but even looking after them when something goes wrong. So, to discuss all of that, I'm joined by Vandana Singh, Chairperson of Aviation Cargo Federation of Aviation Industry in India, Captain Anil Rao, General Secretary of the Airline Pilots Association of India and Sanjay Lazar, Aviation Expert and CEO of Avelas Consultants. Vandana, let me start with you.

So, as you look back and look ahead, what would you say are your three or four key takeaways from what happened?

Thank you, Govind, for having me on your show and also a very good afternoon or shall I say good evening to the esteemed audience, the august audience over here. The first thing, Govind, for me is should an airline operation be so critical that it leads to a collapse. What I'm trying to say is the collapse of an airline on our Indian skies brought the national mobility to a total standstill, to a total halt.

The first question is how can we allow one airline to dominate our Indian skies and India is the size of Western Europe, as we know, and we are giving all of it away, as you rightfully said, 64%, 67% with one carrier, of course, which did a remarkable job in the last 19 or now 20 years, that worked very professionally, that their OTP, their on-time performance and all of it was excellent. But the lean mean machine that it was, what it showed right now was clearly an abuse of dominance, abuse of power, arm twisting, regulatory blackmail, whatever we call it, and has come up with very shoddy, I won't even call them excuses or reasons, the reasons that caused all of this have yet to come out and the government has given it a chance. So the first lesson is, should such a high market share be allowed in our market to an airline to operate?

Please look at the US, there are four major players with an equi amount of market share, and of course, 80 other players also, but nobody is putting all the eggs in one basket, nobody does this. And it's high time that we have to sort of move back in a very cautious way, be it policymaking, be it taking away certain slots. I hope it's not a temporary measure from the minister's words today, it looks to me as if that look, right now, we have taken away 10% of the slot, but if Indigo comes up properly, then we'll reconsider it. I don't think that should be the case. It's a very, very dangerous way to play. This is my first lesson. The second lesson very quickly is, of course, to do with planes.

How many planes do we have? And how many airlines have how many planes? That's how economics is and that's how it's going to be divided.

Right now, SpiceJet can lap up 100 flights a day, and Air India can come up with 70 to 80 flights a day, and Akasa and the other one just have 30-30 equipments. And here you have an Indigo with 1000 plus orders, and you have Air India with another 500 orders, a total 1700 orders, and these equipments are going to come. So how is this distribution going to be?

So these are the lessons plus also passenger communication and passenger consumer rights, all of this along with the way the digital age and era is on, why are things going that way? So a lot of learnings, but I come back to you now so that you allow the other panellists also to pitch in and then we can rotate.

So from what I take away from you is, of course, the airline has seen a 10% cut in their capacity, as instructed by the government. And obviously, the number of flights have come down. And what you're saying is, therefore, this is a good time to hold it there and not allow them to grow further, and which is what should have been done earlier. And the second, of course, is to do with passenger rights, which we'll come back to. Sanjay, again, from your perspective, as you look back and look ahead, the key takeaways and lessons.

I concur with all Dr. Vandana said, but number one, we need to stop this airline-DGCA nexus. You know, we all could see that pilots recruitment was stopped, everything, it was a mess. I mean, people knew, if you look at investor calls, they've actually, you know, fluffed over this in May and November to their board and to their investors saying shareholders, that, you know, this is minimal, nothing will happen.

They've done a run in October, and they knew they didn't have enough pilots. And you knew two years ago, this FDTL was coming. So that's one big thing. We need proper monitoring of the aviation safety hierarchy in this country. You cannot have this Chacha-Batija relationship anymore. And I can see the minister has taken our strong criticism to heart, and he's trying to act, but key players are still being missed out. That's one.

Indigo, like Dr. Vandana said, cannot play Fast and Furious and live on five sets or five and a half sets per airbus. Look at the full service carriers, seven plus set. You need to give pilots a chance to rest. It's safety. It's not about their luxury. He's not going on a holiday to Bali. He is looking after 300, 200 passengers. You've got to consider that.

Going forward, I see this as a golden moment to restructure Indian aviation. I see a chance to restructure the DGCA office into maybe two or three different offices. He wears too many hats, or they wear too many hats. Number two, put in place a strong passenger charter, and put in place a proper system where you are monitoring airlines, their aircraft, you're allowing somebody to buy a thousand aircraft when he doesn't have enough pilots. He should have, you know, seven, eight thousand pilots on that type. He doesn't.

So, you know, this is something that we need to control. We also, going forward, will need to monitor Indigo's wide-body expansion, its aircrafts coming in, because let them fly when they have the pilots. Don't let them bring it in and start flying and then give up some domestic routes. So, this is something the government will have to be careful of, not only for Indigo, for whether it's Air India, Star Air, Akasa, SpiceJet, anyone. Let's have safer skies, is my thought.

And lastly, the little guy. You know, the passenger is just being bandied about and beaten up and not getting his share. There has to be a proper passenger charter. You know, I don't know how long we're going to go on with this lame duck thing. Indigo gave, you know, an offer that seemed like a lollipop yesterday, everybody was jumping on it, 10,000, nobody read the fine print. You know, only if you're severely affected in the eyes of Indigo, can you use it within a year on separate, on specific sectors, during specific times, when we tell you, how we tell you. I've got 800 plus people who have connected and they're all looking to, you know, in the South, they're looking to move towards this. So, you know, Indigo should watch out, so should the government.

Right. I'm coming to Captain Rao in a second. But you said, restructure airlines and restructure DGCA. Can you just spend a minute just explaining both those points?

Yeah, of course, Captain Rao will be able to guide you more on this. But I'll tell you, DGCA today is the regulator of aviation, not long ago, he was the regulator of fares, he deals with training, he deals with safety, he deals with, you know, he deals with licences for foreign pilots, he deals with aircraft landings, aircraft registrations, he deals with slots. I mean, how many things, even the FAA doesn't do so many things. They have divided their stuff. Till recently, till the ICAO mandated, even the accident investigation was here. So, you've got to, you know, separate that. Take pilots out if you want, let it be led by pilots, not by bureaucrats.

I mean, you've got pilots, you've got engineers, you've got crew, but yet you find a bureaucrat coming from NABARD or some other IDB, I'm just giving names, you know, random stuff. But that's the second thing. And the government has to be serious, that keep an arm's length from the Director General.

The Director General should be like the FAA. I mean, of course, the President of the US has powers over the FAA, but he doesn't interfere. They keep it long distance away. You know, unless if it's a typical emergency, this guy looks after, I mean, you go to the DGCA office, this is like an ATM machine here. People, you know, poor people are paying through their nose for every permission. I mean, I don't have to spell this out. We've got two very senior experienced people from aviation here, they can, you know, vouch for what I'm saying, but it's a hell hole, that's one.

Airlines, like Dr. Vandana said, you know, you look at the AT&T example. The US, though it's the doyen and the home of capitalism, asks them to break up. Now, if you're going to get one company with such a pervasive influence over the entire market through fair means or foul, okay, they get more slots, Akasa doesn't, SpiceJet doesn't, somebody else gets. You need to control it so it doesn't topple your industry. Look at the loss, forget our passengers right now for a minute, think about countries, economy and industry. I'd say at least half a percent of GDP has gone down in these 10 days, you know, maybe a little less, but there and thereabouts. So you need to control how much gets.

It's a free market, yes. Look at China, they have four or five big airlines, nobody has more than 25%. So why are we allowing one guy to run away with 65, maybe 70% pretty soon, the way they're growing because Air India is having problems growing till, you know, aircraft deliveries.

Right, okay. So I think you and Vandana are both sort of aligned on the competitiveness or the competition commission role in all of this. And we've seen that competition commissions has actually not worked well, including in areas like telecom in India. But Captain Rao, let me come to you. So it's really the same question. As you look at what's happened, you're a DGCA certified pilot for A320s. And that's really the same aircraft that mostly Indigo flies as well. So how do you look back and forward?

Yeah, coming to this point, I believe the lessons which we take are yet to come, because this is not the end of the lessons we will be taking. We have been taking lessons for so many years. If we talk about monopoly and duopoly here, that's not what the issue is. The issue is whether the rules were followed or not. If the rules were followed, we wouldn't have been in the situation. I would like to tell you also that we are lucky that you only had a lot of inconvenience to passengers and a lot of money lost by the company or by the organisation.

What if this bending of these rules had led to an accident where people had lost lives? Then what you would be doing here, we would not be talking about 67% monopoly or duopoly or things. No, you would be talking only one language here. And that language would be safety. And that's what we are saying. If you bend the rules here, had you implemented these rules on time, number one, you wouldn't have been in the situation. This whole mess and this massive disruption, which has happened and caused so much inconvenience to people.

Of course, there are other airlines also, they could have taken the load, they could have done the flights, whatever it is, that's up to them. It's a business model, what they want to do. Having a share in the market and not sharing the market is absolutely up to the business. What we are here to emphasise only on safety.

There was a monopoly 30 years back when there were only two airlines, Indian Airlines and Air India. Indian Airlines was the only airline which was in the domestic monopoly. But did we anytime see such kind of devastating meltdown of aviation? No. There is something else to do it. Something else is very simple. Till the time you tweet, you try to tamper with the safety rules, this will bound to happen and something more can happen.

Point number two is very simple. If you are giving any kind of leverage, dispensation or variation, exemption, whatever you call to a particular operator, what makes it unfair for the other operator to ask? Now, you might not be in such a big or influential level that you might ask for so many dispensations, maybe a little dispensation. Is that little dispensation okay enough for you to play with the safety and play with the lives of the passengers? No. So, today, if you are asking whether it is small or big or a chunk of dispensation to come because of your commercial needs or commercial interest, which you have committed for your own self, it is nothing to do with passengers. You are not doing a charity thing or charity travel services where the passengers are going to get inconvenienced or they are going to not reach somewhere.

It is a purely commercial interest, a commercial gain for your own organisation, which you have taken up. Now, that could not meet, you could not meet that level of expectations or the targets where you have now gone and asked for exemptions and that exemption is given to you, which we are saying, if during that exemption period something goes really wrong, then who is responsible?

Now, we are talking here, then what happens, something goes right now while we are talking. While we talk, we are still flying in a situation where you are taking exemption, which is beyond the legal permissible regulations of rest and duty times.

Right. So, I will just recap that, Captain Rao, and I will put a question quickly. The earlier requirement for weekly rest hours was 36. The new FTTL endorsed by the courts as well is 48, which is what Indigo should have shifted to by November 1st, the deadline, which they did not, which caused the problems. But what they have asked for is really an extension of the same 36 hours. Am I correct?

No, no. I think the whole DTL thing has gone everywhere. 48 hours is not the contention here. What Indigo has asked is an exemption on the night operations because the night.

So, this is the consecutive night landings?

No, it is the number of night landings in a given period of time. So, I will tell you very simply. They had taken a winter schedule approval. You do not just start flying and you just do not increase your operations overnight. You have to produce evidence or proof that you will be able to operate these flights with certain kinds of buffers. You say I can operate 100 flights, I need to show them my operational accuracy or efficiency would be 90 percent plus, whatever it is. Yes, 10 percent, I will give you the leverage for cancellation, other things and all. Now, in the winter schedule, they have gone up by another, I think 9 percent or something like that, but they have increased the schedules, operations because the winter schedule is always bigger than the summer schedule. So, people are travelling more and stuff like that. In that operation, they had asked for exemption. They had an exemption asked by other operators as well.

The FDTL Car Revision 2 is not exactly followed by every operator. Every operator has asked for their small exemption, which has been given to them and they fly. The exemptions asked by Indigo were given to them at conditions which were different. They could not do with that. Now, they asked for extra exemptions on that for the night operations. For example, I will tell you as per FDTL Car, night means night 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock. Night landings means anything you land after 12 in the night is only two landings. Now, they got exemptions on that saying that okay, if I start my flight before 12 o'clock, but I roaster you to land before 12 o'clock, I will give you four landings. But if I cross the 12 o'clock as opposed to stop at two, but then he comes again and says no, no, give me two hours more.

So, now I can land up to two o'clock extended. I started with my duty ending at 11 o'clock, but due to unforeseen circumstances, which is said so, because mostly can be seen also. So, I will do another two landings, not stopping at a third and I go to the fourth landing.

To which the FDTL Car clearly said that I shall not do any landings more than two when I cross 12 o'clock. Now, you got an exemption to do four landings with certain conditions. Similar to that, it was divided in three scales.

Scale for FDTL Car was only one, 12 to 6 is night and after 12, two landings. They had exemptions to it, sub clauses to add to it, and so on and so forth, where their operations were met. And that is when these exemptions were given to them after this whole fiasco of, you know, a massive disruption. So, now they are flying with that exemption at the same time, I like to tell you that the exemptions are only given to IndiGo, no other operator, the other operators are flying with their own FDTL Car, which is it. So, at any given point of time, the two pilots in the same country fly with two different rules, so that one operator flies with lesser fatigue, the other operator IndiGo pilot flies with more fatigue. The question arises that does the government or the regulator or the operator give immunity to the pilots of IndiGo of fatigue, that nothing will happen to their fatigue.

Does your body take that as an exemption to tell your body that okay, for next two months, my body is exempted from getting fatigue, I am okay to fly with less sleep, I am okay to fly with more operations, more landings, more night time. So, does the body get dispensation?

Right. Okay. Let me come back. I think we are, we are running to the end of the show very quickly and very soon. Vandana, you know, so you, I mean, you wear a commercial hat in your day job. You know, if IndiGo or any airline were to follow these new regulations, which essentially means, you know, more pilots and maybe less routes as things stand, assuming those exemptions that we have just discussed expire, which they will at some point. Do you think airlines can run profitably? It is a sort of open-ended question.

You will have to come up with the question again, because there was a call coming. So, could you just repeat it, please?

So, my question, Vandana, is, I mean, if you were to wear your commercial hat, which is your day job, I am sure, and an airline like IndiGo or anyone else were to, let us say, you know, fly more with, I mean, fly less with more pilots, essentially, which is what they will have to do once the exemptions go away. Can they run or can any airline be profitable in India, given the fact of where fares are, given the fact that other costs are really high?

See, why not? First of all, we have to understand the total ecosystem or the landscape has changed, Govind– meaning that what was 10 years back is not what it is now. What you see in our country is a lot of, you see a double-digit growth, first of all, in the passenger traffic itself. See the load factor, see the load fall. So, looking at that, we are seeing an almost doubling as far as passenger capacity, passengers are concerned, and we see this growing to six-fold in the coming few years. Having said that, there is infrastructure boom that has happened. A lot of airports have come up. We have about 124 now functional airports, and the aim is to get up to 400 to 500 airports as per the UDAAN scheme that has been extended by another 10 years by the government.

And also, the kind of red tapism or bureaucracy or the things that were there in terms of policy and in terms of really difficult for airlines to make things, make operating profits, that's not the case anymore. A lot of things have come up, a lot of things have gotten relaxed, and I feel that with proper mathematics, an airline can definitely make itself profitable. And looking at Indigo, the lean mean machine that it was, it was always, I mean, last year itself, it was 8000 plus crore profit. So, the question is, of course, first thing, as Captain Anil Rao also said, it's about safety and security. We have to look and address the fatigue risk management system. It is a mandate internationally by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. All of the 195 countries coming under it, including India, have to follow it. So, the FTDL regulations, limitations have to be followed.

And it cannot be that you have less pilots and you're giving them more fatigue. No, nobody works like that. Otherwise, we are looking at what happened on June 12th in this country with Air India, we will see something God forward happening with Indigo. Nobody can risk safety and security of the passenger and safety and security and adequate rest of the pilot. And trust me, fatigue is not something which is only related to India, it is a global concern. And this is why it is very important that this be addressed. So, I do believe with real time planning, real time strategy, with good data analytics, and all of it, that any airline will know how to make itself profitable. Otherwise, it's not worth operating.

Okay. Sanjay, you talked about two or three things, including the DGCA itself, which is the regulator, you talked about more effective or rather a passenger charter, which also is therefore more effective. And I think both you and Vandana talked about curtailing, not allowing airlines to grow beyond a certain point.

Sanjay, is that feasible? So, the reason Indigo has gone to 64% is because they obviously had the chops to do it. I mean, they had someone like, you know, I mean, they had people who could do it, whether it's Rakesh Gangwal or Rahul Bhatia himself, who's conspicuously absent right now, but they obviously had that ability and the management bandwidth and the drive to take it to where they did.

Yes. You know, Govind, you have to look at it from a different point of view. Had Air India been in the private hands during these 19 years, you probably would have seen this Air India also at 1000 aircrafts by now very easily. Okay. I also then have to say this of Akasa, you look at Akasa, you know, you check back, they have complained of lack of slots, whatever, whatever, the lack of access- market access. Because, you know, what Jet Airways used to be 15 or 20 years ago, 15 years ago, that big monster in the DGCA has been now taken away, taken up by this big blue giant.

Whether it's feasible, it's not feasible in the immediate. They're already there. Indigo is already there, present at 64%. You can't say slash them down to 44% or something. But in time, you've got to give, you've got to start putting some rules in a place where you start giving others an opportunity. If they fail, you give it to these guys. You know, that's what you've got to do to develop your market. Like Dr. Vandana rightly said, you know, in the US, you have four or five big carriers, and then you have 70, 80 smaller carriers. You need to start developing that. We can't let, you know, one jolly green giant eat everybody up. That's, that's how I see it. And it's feasible, there is profit for everybody to be made, if they run it like Indigo, and Indigo has proved that. So we need to look at that, you know, as it stands and go forward.

Okay, I'm coming for closing comments. Captain Rao, let me start with you. If I were to ask you purely now as a pilot, if we were to let's say adopt some of these new FDTL requirements, would Indian skies be safer? Or at least would pilots be less fatigued, and therefore be up to the task of taking Indian aviation to where it wants to go?

Aviation will be safe till the time you follow the given particular lay down rules. All these rules were amended from time to time because the fatigue risk of the fatigue management was studied upon only then they were implemented. You know, bending them or trying to find loopholes in them, like the law books, will not help except for getting you some short term gains as profits.

But life cannot be substituted for the profits. One accident, one crash and loss of lives will not only bring down forget about bringing down your profits down or brand name down, you are playing with people's life. You cannot, nobody has the authority. The rules were made for certain reasons. If I have followed the rules, I will follow the rules. You cannot give implementation of rules to certain people selectively and certain people selectively cannot, number one.

Number two, fatigue is a risk management issue and not a cost reduction variable. You cannot use fatigue as a tool to make profits or cost effectiveness. Number two, what happened, what we have seen is an over optimistic scheduling and buffer squeezing always will backfire. What you have done is you have gone optimistic, you have taken the things for granted that you would probably get dismantled. You squeezed your buffers and every FDTL, even when it was made, it is written in the FDTL car that you need to have a buffer in your planning. If you do not have a buffer and you want to plan it with 100 percent optimistic level of utilisation, then you will go short on your crew or short on your planning. And that is when you will go jumping back saying that now you give me, you know, dismantling, now you give me special permissions because I have to do my business. I had booked more than what I could, I thought I would be able to maintain. So all these things are very, very important.

And lastly, I would say that safety culture must shift from compliance to well-being plus accountability. Safety needs to have accountability. Every person involved in this safety circular rule regulation from every corner of the country, whoever was involved in it shall be accountable for, you know, for twisting and turning them for their personal benefits.

Right. Vandana, I am just coming to you for your closing remarks. But Captain Rao, Indigo was obviously in the centre of this whole firestorm. Other airlines appear to have, you know, met or are meeting the new flight duty requirements or the amount of time that pilots get to rest. Are you confident that the rest of the airlines are on safe ground on this count and passengers can expect Indigo also to come back to some kind of normalcy?

Like I said, the FDTL car has not been implemented in totality. All operators do also have their own small dismantling taken. The only thing is that with that dismantling, they are doing fine with their planning and with their business models. Only thing did not go well with Indigo and that is why we are here. We are again saying that FDTL made by the DGCA shall be implemented without any leverage or variations in that. That is what I am saying.

If they are implemented in the totality or the spirit and intent by which it is made, safety will be held, safety will be protected and safety can be protected because these rules and regulations have been done with extensive amount of study, research and feedback from the person who is handling it is the pilot. They have done all these things with a lot of research with ICAO concurrences, coordination with other organisations and all and a proper medical research has been done. So when you see these things have been done and these are max limits.

Let me tell you one thing, Govind to come to it. If these FDTL cars do not mean that you make you fly or operate or do the duty to the limit, they have to be used as a maximum limit for making your plans according to your area of operation, the type of operations. It does not mean that because DGCA has said use you for 12 hours, I use you for 12 hours.

No, that depends upon what kind of operations you are doing. You are doing cargo or international operations, you are crossing 12 time zones, depending upon how they are doing and depending upon your operations, your crew and your thing and you have to do your own self study in your operations and then implement your own scheme which will be less than that. But they are not doing that. They are implementing this as totality, number one.

Number two, these FDTLs should not be, should be treated as max limitation and not a target to be exploited. That is what is happening. It is a market target. It is like a marketing executor. You go and sell 100 cell phones and I will give you this, this thing. So, when you use these rules and regulations as a target to exploit your market need, this whole rule is no longer applicable. It just goes into the dustbin. So, we need to understand that these rules are made to the maximum level. You cannot use these rules to your maximum level. But this limitation has been given beyond that also. That is what.

Got it. Vandana, last word here and let me pose a couple of questions. One is, this has been a difficult period for everyone. I mean, airlines, government, passengers first and everyone has suffered. I mean, when I say airlines, I mean, everyone who works in Indigo, I mean, those who are standing at the counters and facing angry passengers, I mean, it has been tough for them too, or for that matter, pilots and so on. So, everyone has had a tough time and all of this leads to a reduction of trust in the system.

So, number one question is, how do we rebuild that trust? And what should airlines like Indigo be doing beyond, let us say, putting out nice messages on Twitter? The second is, as we look ahead, and as you talked about a growing market, how do we sort of, in a few words, regulate this market and regulate this growth in a way that things are more orderly from here on?

Okay, Govind, first of all, the first lesson is that Indigo has turned a regulatory norm into a national crisis. This is what happened over here, that one airline arm twisted and turned a regulatory change, which had to come just to extend it, they turned it into a national crisis. So, moving on from here, first of all, DGCA has to have a very strong vigil, and has to have a very robust system. Right now, it's embedded its own people within the Indigo systems, but this is not the way it should work. It should work in a very professional, a very disciplined manner. And the takeaway also here, and the learning moving ahead is that, that the airlines on all fronts, of course, safety, security, crew resource management, which is a huge topic, when it also comes to rostering, scheduling, everything has to be managed and done properly, and there has to be backup, and a backup for a backup.

Please understand what happened to Southwest Airlines in 2022, take that as a business case, December 2022, and the meltdown that followed with 16,000 flight cancellations and the penalties it faced up to, I think, $1.40 billion or what it was. That's the way a watchdog like DGCA has to function. It cannot function without, you know, just taking the scheduling, the way it's coming in, winter rostering that's coming in, okay here, okay there. It cannot be, it has to be vigilant. This is important, and the airlines moving ahead have to be extremely professional. You cannot put people and customer service assistants outside there to take all the bashing because they really don't know what's going on.

It is total mismanagement right from the top, and also the accountability factor, right from the leadership, accountability happens. When 2611 happened at the Taj Man Singh Hotel in Mumbai, Ratan Tata came out and stood there in the front. What is happening over here? There is no accountability of leadership. Well, the owner, the promoter, Mr. Rahul Bhatia should have come out by now. Why? Because A, you're an Indian. B, this is the airline that you dreamt of. You started off as a travel agent. You made such a big indigo empire, and now you're missing in action. So, lots of things that airlines have to learn. It cannot be that the CEO and the CO are the punchbags. Yes, they are the spokespeople that they will be bashed up. They will be fired. But what about the rest?

So, all in all, all airlines have to have this accountability, and safety, Govind, has got no compromise. Safety cannot be compromised. Of the pilot, of the equipment, rightfully rest hours have to be given. And this is something which is non-negotiable. It cannot be bargained. Over to you.

Right. On that note, I think you've summed it up pretty well, Vandana. We've covered all the aspects ranging from regulatory control to competition or managing of competition in a dynamic market like this to, of course, the most important being pilot safety and how we need to approach it and approach it in an objective way so as to ensure that millions of Indians can fly safely and can hope to fly safely and reach their destinations and their loved ones.

On that note, thank you very much for joining me.

Author:   The Core Team

In this week’s The Core Report: Weekend Edition, Govindraj Ethiraj speaks with Vandana Singh, Chairperson of Aviation Cargo Federation of Aviation Industry in India, Captain Anil Rao, General Secretary of the Airline Pilots Association of India and Sanjay Lazar, Aviation Expert and CEO of Avelas Consultants, where the experts examine IndiGo’s recent operational crisis, regulatory failures, and market concentration as key concerns.