I-DIDN'T-GO

 

Hesitated to write this piece. I worked with the Ministry of Civil Aviation for six long years but my job pertained to aviation security, not aviation safety. You may well ask, aren’t they the same thing? 

There is a difference. If a small nut is missing from the thousands of things in an aircraft and, as a result, it crashes, that is a safety issue. If, however, the nut was deliberately removed so that the aircraft would crash, it becomes a security issue. So, human intervention and malevolent intent are sine qua non for something to be treated as an aviation security issue. 

Given this, I’m not really qualified to hold forth on the recent Indigo no-go. However, because of a civil aviation stint, some folks have asked me to hold forth on it. So, here goes, for whatever it’s worth. 

Why did it happen? Why did more than 5,000 flights get cancelled, and continuing? 

Indigo has given several reasons for it. The “new” Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL), technology issues (such as the A320 software update), seasonal schedule realignment, airport congestion, and adverse weather conditions. While the other reasons were part fact, part fiction and part wild exaggeration (Indigo attributed weather conditions for certain flights and airports with perfectly sunny weather; other airlines managed the software upgrade, etc.), the single main reason was the FDTL. 

Indigo’s claims of “new” FDTL are not tenable. These norms were issued in January 2024 and airlines had almost two full years to implement them. They required to hire new pilots and staff. Instead of this, Indigo is reported to have responded by putting a freeze on pilot hire. Which is okay really. Indigo is a private operator and it can have whatever staff it wants. However, with that hiring freeze, and with the revised FDTL norms, they could operate less flights. What they did was actually increase the no. of flights for the winter schedule (effective October 26) by 6 % over their summer schedule and 9.66 % over the previous year’s winter schedule. This was brazenly non-compliant behaviour. Further, this is quite likely to have been a case of “slot hoarding” so that other operators are elbowed out - typical monopolist machinations. 

With a 65 % market share, Indigo clearly thought it would get away with it. They obviously have so far, as seen by the government having been compelled to withdraw the FDTL order. Airlines have tended to have an out-sized influence over DGCA and the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Sometime back, during the UPA era, Kingfisher pilots and crew went without salary for a prolonged period. The then DGCA determined that this had serious safety implications and, one fine morning, issued a notice to the airline to explain. In the afternoon of the same day, another officer walked into his office, waved a paper to show that the incumbent DGCA had been unceremoniously removed and that this officer was the new DGCA so could the now-former-DGCA kindly vacate the chair? 

DGCA also must share some of the blame. Firstly, while FDTL is an important component of safety, they seem to have taken a maximalist approach. Here’s the comparison of the FDTL norms: 

Parameter	“New” DGCA, India rules	USA	EU
Max daily flight time	10 hrs	8-9 hrs	10 hrs
Max flight duty period	11 hrs	9-14 hrs	13 hrs
Night duty definition	0000-0600 (max 2 landings/ week)	0000-0459	0200-0459
Minimum daily rest	12 hrs	10 hrs	12 hrs
Weekly rest	48 hrs	30-34 hrs	36 hrs

The other FDTL norms are the same for all the three. The problem seems to have occurred with increasing the weekly rest to 48 hrs from the earlier 36 hours and capping the night landings at 2. These 48 hours are 50 % higher than the limit followed by USA and EU and the previous limit of DGCA India. The cap on night landings was 6 in India, prior to these regulations. 

Secondly, it is not possible that DGCA didn’t know that Indigo didn’t have the manpower to operate their existing schedule with the revised FDTL norms. Given that, their approving an enhanced winter schedule for Indigo beggars belief. 

Another agency which seems to have been asleep at the wheel is the Competition Commission of India. This commission and the Competition Act were created precisely to prevent such abuse of dominant position in the market. They should have prevented an organisation from growing "too big to fail.” 

The incident has wreaked havoc with the schedules and lives of many passengers and their families/ organisations. Image of the Indian aviation industry has taken a tumble. The disruption has been humungous and the industry/economy will take a long while to recover from the aftershocks. Meanwhile, a song written in 1875 and an ex-Prime Minister who died in 1964 are more important issues today.