Rammohan naidu @parliament on indigo crisis

[pushpa1]

12 hours ago, Redarya said:

Nuvvu roju tagubothu gadidi seeke alavatu vundani andarini ante etla ra labor langa

labor yellow langaa challl mungeyyy leki edava

[Redarya]

51 minutes ago, pushpa1 said:

labor yellow langaa challl mungeyyy leki edava

Nuvve mingei raa Langa. Tagubotudi seekadaniki Hyd vadili ravatla chillara edava

[kakatiya]

23 hours ago, Android_Halwa said:

Ie Nibba Minister degarinundi inkemi expect sestar ? Poni emaina kotha muchata cheoinda ? Edi aithe last 2 says nundi scriot saduvutundo, ade malli seppindu yedhava…

Nov 1-Dec 1st emi elagapettinav ra ante indigo de thappu antadu…eedi boss emo world class capital ani municipality..eedu emi indigo de thappu…template marchandra aya

It is actually indigos mistake. Indigo didn't fill in the gap for 48 hour rest requirement by recruting in more pilots well in advance..they assumed ministry will take security precautions lightly. This was notified 18 months in advance not one month. The regulations only came in to affect recently but not the initial notice.

 

Why didn't aviation ministry extended relaxing the 48 hour rest rule ?

After Air india crash pressure  , pilots scrutiny/mandatory rest of 48 hours is must..otherwise no one will fly Indian airlines in the future raising poor aviation standards. 

Why can't indigo hire more pilots on November 1 st ?

In India any airline pilots require 6 months of notice period to move between airlines.  So indigo cannot simply fill in pilots after Nov 1 in the very last minute, They should have started way early. 

Also air india doesn't have this problem since pilot to aircraft ratio is high.. majority of air india flights are grounded in hangers... where as indigo being economy airlines they have strict pilot to planes ratio. Resting their pilots means they have to cancel flight schedules. Basically their pilots run very strict schedule..very dangerous..imagin a RTC bus operator driving hyderbad to Mumbai night route 6 days a week..with one day rest only ? 

Since they have started implementing 48 hour strict rule..only 500 of their scheduled flights were impacted..but that's a lot of cancellations ..considering indigo run 2400+ plane flight schedules.

[Roger_that]

our CM lokesh will take care from war room.... 

[Android_Halwa]

24 minutes ago, kakatiya said:

It is actually indigos mistake. Indigo didn't fill in the gap for 48 hour rest requirement by recruting in more pilots well in advance..they assumed ministry will take security precautions lightly. This was notified 18 months in advance not one month. The regulations only came in to affect recently but not the notice.

 

After Air india crash pressure  , pilots scrutiny/mandatory rest of 48 hours is must..otherwise no one will fly Indian airlines in the future raising poor aviation standards. 

 

In India any airline pilots require 6 months of notice period to move between airlines.  So indigo cannot simply fill in pilots after Nov 1 ...they should have started way early. 

Also air india doesn't have this problem since pilot to aircraft ratio is high.. majority of air india flights are grounded in hangars... where as indigo being economy airlines they have strict pilot to planes ration.

Since they have started implementing 48 hour strict rule..only 500 of their fleet were impacted..but that's a lot of planes ..considering indigo run 2400+ planes.

Indigo is a private airline where concepts of loss, profit, investment and stakeholders play a major role in shaping their decisions and recruiting a pilot is time consuming and usually takes. Its not like you find one and recruit one because there is a deadline looming. 
 

IMO, the Nov 1st deadline itself is a hurdle. All the airlines to meet the deadline started hiring for Pilots and when there is a deadline looming, there will be a shortage of pilots and this is what it has happened. The deadline should not have implemented in the first place and this is the biggest policy failure. Indigo lost more pilots to other airlines than they could recruit in this period.

Indigo has 430 aircrafts with one new plane joining the fleet every month. Their hiring strategy should be a continuous on-going thing than a one time deadline based.

On any given day, about 30-40 aircrafts will be down for maintenance. So, best case they will be flying about 390 air crafts on 2,200 flight services everyday.

That’s almost 4-5 destinations each aircraft and they need about 4 pilots and 4 first officers per aircraft per day with another set on reserve duty….This is one pilot short of recommended 11 pilots per aircraft. Akasa and Air India has about 18 pilots per aircraft and Nov 1st deadline has no effect on these airlines. This is where things went wrong with Indigo. They never had adequate pilots being a lean and mean model and when a deadline was put in, they barely could adhere to the rule. 
 

Pilot hiring has to be continuous activity and pilots to aircraft ratio has to be maintained what so ever and Indigo did no, whip should have put in place years back when they started expanding rapidly and adding routes. 
 

DGCA and Ministry of Aviation is the one who should be blamed, Indigo maintained just enough pool to fly their aircrafts and they do so for their balance sheet but the onus is on govt to decide the safe numbers.

[kakatiya]

2 minutes ago, Android_Halwa said:

Indigo is a private airline where concepts of loss, profit, investment and stakeholders play a major role in shaping their decisions and recruiting a pilot is time consuming and usually takes. Its not like you find one and recruit one because there is a deadline looming. 
 

IMO, the Nov 1st deadline itself is a hurdle. All the airlines to meet the deadline started hiring for Pilots and when there is a deadline looming, there will be a shortage of pilots and this is what it has happened. The deadline should not have implemented in the first place and this is the biggest policy failure. Indigo lost more pilots to other airlines than they could recruit in this period.

Indigo has 430 aircrafts with one new plane joining the fleet every month. Their hiring strategy should be a continuous on-going thing than a one time deadline based.

On any given day, about 30-40 aircrafts will be down for maintenance. So, best case they will be flying about 390 air crafts on 2,200 flight services everyday.

That’s almost 4-5 destinations each aircraft and they need about 4 pilots and 4 first officers per aircraft per day with another set on reserve duty….This is one pilot short of recommended 11 pilots per aircraft. Akasa and Air India has about 18 pilots per aircraft and Nov 1st deadline has no effect on these airlines. This is where things went wrong with Indigo. They never had adequate pilots being a lean and mean model and when a deadline was put in, they barely could adhere to the rule. 
 

Pilot hiring has to be continuous activity and pilots to aircraft ratio has to be maintained what so ever and Indigo did no, whip should have put in place years back when they started expanding rapidly and adding routes. 
 

DGCA and Ministry of Aviation is the one who should be blamed, Indigo maintained just enough pool to fly their aircrafts and they do so for their balance sheet but the onus is on govt to decide the safe numbers.

You are twisting facts. They provided 18 months notice..Nov 1 was the action date. Indigo had 3 times the recruting time to hire more pilots. I clearly mentioned in my post it takes 6 months for a pilot to resign and transfer between airlines. I already highlighted that point in my analysis.You either intentionally ignored it or want to super imposethe fault at dgca. 

 

If DGCA is to blame..why is it only indigo airlines..not other airlines being impacted?

I also mentioned in my analysis how indigo is strictly a budget airlines and depend on over exhausting flight schedules for their pilots to save money. We cannot allow pilots to run 6 days a week schedule and wait for another mishap to happen.  No one will fly Indian airlines of standards are this low.. People are already avoiding private bus transportation which use exhausted bus drivers.. airlines is the last industry to practice such poor standards.. 

[kakatiya]

11 minutes ago, Android_Halwa said:

Indigo is a private airline where concepts of loss, profit, investment and stakeholders play a major role in shaping their decisions and recruiting a pilot is time consuming and usually takes. Its not like you find one and recruit one because there is a deadline looming. 
 

IMO, the Nov 1st deadline itself is a hurdle. All the airlines to meet the deadline started hiring for Pilots and when there is a deadline looming, there will be a shortage of pilots and this is what it has happened. The deadline should not have implemented in the first place and this is the biggest policy failure. Indigo lost more pilots to other airlines than they could recruit in this period.

Indigo has 430 aircrafts with one new plane joining the fleet every month. Their hiring strategy should be a continuous on-going thing than a one time deadline based.

On any given day, about 30-40 aircrafts will be down for maintenance. So, best case they will be flying about 390 air crafts on 2,200 flight services everyday.

That’s almost 4-5 destinations each aircraft and they need about 4 pilots and 4 first officers per aircraft per day with another set on reserve duty….This is one pilot short of recommended 11 pilots per aircraft. Akasa and Air India has about 18 pilots per aircraft and Nov 1st deadline has no effect on these airlines. This is where things went wrong with Indigo. They never had adequate pilots being a lean and mean model and when a deadline was put in, they barely could adhere to the rule. 
 

Pilot hiring has to be continuous activity and pilots to aircraft ratio has to be maintained what so ever and Indigo did no, whip should have put in place years back when they started expanding rapidly and adding routes. 
 

DGCA and Ministry of Aviation is the one who should be blamed, Indigo maintained just enough pool to fly their aircrafts and they do so for their balance sheet but the onus is on govt to decide the safe numbers.

Timeline of Events:

Early 2024: DGCA formally notifies airlines of updated FDTL norms (new pilot rest/duty rules).

June/July 2024: Phased implementation begins, culminating in full effect from November 1, 2025.

Early December 2025: IndiGo faces massive flight disruptions, attributing it partly to the new FDTL rules.

December 5, 2025: DGCA issues show-cause notices to IndiGo leadership regarding disruptions, requests explanation for poor planning.

December 5, 2025: DGCA grants IndiGo a temporary exemption from some new rules (night duty, rest norms) until February 10, 2026, to stabilize operations.

December 8, 2025: IndiGo submits a detailed response to the DGCA, explaining the disruptions as a mix of factors including the new rules and technical issues, while also noting ongoing discussions with the regulator about implementation challenges. 

 

Indigo had enough time as of early 2024 - dec 2025.  It is their fault to not take it seriously. 

 

They where not notified on nov1st all of a sudden. 

[Android_Halwa]

3 minutes ago, kakatiya said:

If DGCA is to blame..why is it only indigo airlines..not other airlines being impacted?

 

It’s actually situational. In the last 12 months, Air India and Spice jet has quite a few of their planes grounded for maintenance and engine issues. About 30% of the fleet is grounded and this has left quite a few pilots on the stand by and they did not had to recruit additional pilots for the deadline. I do not have exact numbers , Air India has about 35 narrow bodied grounded out of 150 planes and spice has about 8 grounded, helped with Pilot availability. 
 

This is the reason why other airlines were not impacted as they has additional pilots on stand by. Where as Indigo, in-spite of having a huge fleet maintained just enough to maximize the operational efficiency. This is where DGCA should have stepped in and advice to add more pilots to avoid the overload but it came very late, literally delayed by 5-6 years. This has been an issue ever since Jet went bankrupt but DGCA woke up an year back. 
 

Setting a deadline, is about to kill an airline all together. We can’t let an airline the size of Indigo go bust. Rules and regulations needs to be part of the business cycle, not a wake up call.

[Bhagath_Singh]

Why Air India and Indigo have foriegn CEO's...They both dont have Indian citizenship...it is easy for Enemy countries to create disturbance......by corrupting them.

 

[Android_Halwa]

50 minutes ago, kakatiya said:

Timeline of Events:

Early 2024: DGCA formally notifies airlines of updated FDTL norms (new pilot rest/duty rules).

June/July 2024: Phased implementation begins, culminating in full effect from November 1, 2025.

Early December 2025: IndiGo faces massive flight disruptions, attributing it partly to the new FDTL rules.

December 5, 2025: DGCA issues show-cause notices to IndiGo leadership regarding disruptions, requests explanation for poor planning.

December 5, 2025: DGCA grants IndiGo a temporary exemption from some new rules (night duty, rest norms) until February 10, 2026, to stabilize operations.

December 8, 2025: IndiGo submits a detailed response to the DGCA, explaining the disruptions as a mix of factors including the new rules and technical issues, while also noting ongoing discussions with the regulator about implementation challenges. 

 

Indigo had enough time as of early 2024 - dec 2025.  It is their fault to not take it seriously. 

 

They where not notified on nov1st all of a sudden. 

Good. DGCA has realized that this is a problem and then started acting on it.

That’s exactly the problem. DGCA waited till an issue became a problem and then acted…Do you see the problem here ?

We have rules and regulations to avoid problems. We cannot afford to wait till an issue becomes a problem and then act on it. 

[kakatiya]

12 minutes ago, Android_Halwa said:

Good. DGCA has realized that this is a problem and then started acting on it.

That’s exactly the problem. DGCA waited till an issue became a problem and then acted…Do you see the problem here ?

We have rules and regulations to avoid problems. We cannot afford to wait till an issue becomes a problem and then act on it. 

No they didn't. I clearly mentioned the timeliness. They laid out plan well in advance. 2 years [20 minths precisely]is a lot of time.  Sent enough reminders to all the airlines.. airlines followed them promptly.

Indigo didn't comply and  rest did ..as simple as that..this is indigos problem. Not other single airline have problem with these regulations. 

[Android_Halwa]

42 minutes ago, kakatiya said:

No they didn't. I clearly mentioned the timeliness. They laid out plan well in advance. 2 years [20 minths precisely]is a lot of time.  Sent enough reminders to all the airlines.. airlines followed them promptly.

Indigo didn't comply and  rest did ..as simple as that..this is indigos problem. Not other single airline have problem with these regulations. 

I clearly explained earlier, why other airlines were able to meet the deadline and Indigo couldn’t. Its because of the size of its fleet.

Second, DGCA acted very late after the issue became a problem

6 months is usual notice period but after you join an other airline in India, you need to undergo another set of training and evaluation and only them you will be given pilot control. That will take around 8-9 months including the six month notice period. As per you, Indigo should have hired 500 pilots on the day DGCA notified so that they could be ready by Nov 1st. 

Even an experienced pilot with over 5000 hours, need to undergo training for 3-4 months, another 100 hours as first officer and then take control as Pilot/Captain. Did you factor in this in your calculation ?

 

Do you really think it’s possible in an year ? 
 

FYI, A320 pilots are in huge demand.

[akkum_bakkum]

4 hours ago, Android_Halwa said:

Indigo is a private airline where concepts of loss, profit, investment and stakeholders play a major role in shaping their decisions and recruiting a pilot is time consuming and usually takes. Its not like you find one and recruit one because there is a deadline looming. 
 

IMO, the Nov 1st deadline itself is a hurdle. All the airlines to meet the deadline started hiring for Pilots and when there is a deadline looming, there will be a shortage of pilots and this is what it has happened. The deadline should not have implemented in the first place and this is the biggest policy failure. Indigo lost more pilots to other airlines than they could recruit in this period.

Indigo has 430 aircrafts with one new plane joining the fleet every month. Their hiring strategy should be a continuous on-going thing than a one time deadline based.

On any given day, about 30-40 aircrafts will be down for maintenance. So, best case they will be flying about 390 air crafts on 2,200 flight services everyday.

That’s almost 4-5 destinations each aircraft and they need about 4 pilots and 4 first officers per aircraft per day with another set on reserve duty….This is one pilot short of recommended 11 pilots per aircraft. Akasa and Air India has about 18 pilots per aircraft and Nov 1st deadline has no effect on these airlines. This is where things went wrong with Indigo. They never had adequate pilots being a lean and mean model and when a deadline was put in, they barely could adhere to the rule. 
 

Pilot hiring has to be continuous activity and pilots to aircraft ratio has to be maintained what so ever and Indigo did no, whip should have put in place years back when they started expanding rapidly and adding routes. 
 

DGCA and Ministry of Aviation is the one who should be blamed, Indigo maintained just enough pool to fly their aircrafts and they do so for their balance sheet but the onus is on govt to decide the safe numbers.

thitthilo pekkuko va nee opinion. Facts suggest otherwise....18 months notice saripoda pilots ni hire chesi train cheydaniki. Nee business mindset lone alochiddam. If a company cannot adopt to changing regulations, thy will fail. Everyone knows this basic ideology. Still thy chose to ignore. Whose fault is it then? ithadi chembem kaadu. Ide ministry nitin gadkari or someone else kinda vundunte u wud be screaming foul on Indigo by now.

[Android_Halwa]

4 minutes ago, akkum_bakkum said:

thitthilo pekkuko va nee opinion. Facts suggest otherwise....18 months notice saripoda pilots ni hire chesi train cheydaniki. Nee business mindset lone alochiddam. If a company cannot adopt to changing regulations, thy will fail. Everyone knows this basic ideology. Still thy chose to ignore. Whose fault is it then? ithadi chembem kaadu. Ide ministry nitin gadkari or someone else kinda vundunte u wud be screaming foul on Indigo by now.

18 months ? Asalu, how can you let an airline increase its fleet and keep adding destinations and flights without having the required number of pilots in the first place?

Indigo has been going through rapid expansion, its the duty of Govt/Regulator ro ensure they have enough pilots on their roster to support the operations and expansion and reserve. 

Avi levu kabatte kada ie 18 months, Nov 1st deadline pettindi...Whose failure is this to miss such an important aspect of the aviation business ? who is supposed to monitor ? deenikosame kada reguations vundevi...

 

[akkum_bakkum]

58 minutes ago, Android_Halwa said:

18 months ? Asalu, how can you let an airline increase its fleet and keep adding destinations and flights without having the required number of pilots in the first place?

Indigo has been going through rapid expansion, its the duty of Govt/Regulator ro ensure they have enough pilots on their roster to support the operations and expansion and reserve. 

Avi levu kabatte kada ie 18 months, Nov 1st deadline pettindi...Whose failure is this to miss such an important aspect of the aviation business ? who is supposed to monitor ? deenikosame kada reguations vundevi...

 

idi maree bagundi va....Govt is not going manage their workforce. Understand that first. Govt.'s duty is to enforce regulations they have created. Thats the basic work of a regulating agency....not manage the vision/hiring plan of private airlines. FAA also will not have a roster of all pilots nor do thy maintain an expansion plan of private airlines.

 

As of Oct 31, their workforce was enough and it is the duty of Indigo to forsee its workforce in alignment with changing regulations. Nov 1 nunchi Dec 1 varaku ela saripoyaru mari? Whose fault is it to run a lean and mean business model. Adapt or go out of business....simple logic.