IndiGo’s board has moved to contain the fallout from the carrier’s worst operational crisis in years, announcing the appointment of an external technical specialist to independently examine what triggered the mass disruptions and recommend reforms to prevent a repeat.
In a detailed video statement on Wednesday, chairman Vikram Singh Mehta said the board had been “closely involved for many months” and rejected allegations that IndiGo engineered the crisis or sought to influence the government’s new flight duty time limitation (FDTL) rules. “These claims are incorrect,” he said, stressing that the airline operated fully under the updated fatigue norms in both July and November.
He said the disruption stemmed from a “combination of internal and unanticipated external events” — including technical glitches, winter-schedule adjustments, bad weather, network congestion and the shift to the new rostering regime. “This is not an excuse… this combination pushed our systems beyond their limits,” he noted, adding that safety had never been compromised.
Before the disruption, the airline — formally known as InterGlobe Aviation — was operating around 2,300 daily flights. After the breakdown triggered by the new FDTL norms at the start of December, it cancelled nearly 5,000 flights.
Chief executive officer Pieter Elbers has since said operations are now stable. Mehta explained that he delayed speaking publicly because the board first wanted to support management and help affected passengers. “We are sorry,” he said. “The company has erred. It now has to rebuild your trust. This will depend on actions, not words.”
The external expert’s mandate will include tracing the root causes, reviewing crew-rostering processes, and recommending structural improvements to ensure such a crisis “never occurs again.”
