Some Indi-Dgca home truths

As Indigo is likely to submit its reply to the DGCA showcause notice for India’s aviation meltdown of last fortnight, the Nation is still bewildered as to why it happened ? The Aviation ministry cut Indigos flights by 10per cent and setup a “high level enquiry committee” within DGCA, that included persons who were involved in the decision making, that caused this crisis, rather than have impartial external committee. the Ministry fell back on the tried and tested “Babu investigate Babu scheme”.

The Delhi High Court ordered Phase-1 implementation in July Phase-2 in November and the Interglobe CFO had stated on Nov 4th Investor call - “Theres a new FDTL that has kicked in from November. “While it’s a scaled down version what was initially proposed by the regulators, nonetheless there will be some incremental cost.”. Curiously, Indigo removed 80 pilots in early 2025 and 40 more SFOs on 19/9/25 and paused Pilot recruitment in June. So then what caused almost 4900 flights to be cancelled ?

The hushed allegations of a “pact” between some DGCA officers and some airline officers have lingered for ages. The social media Images showing Indigo staff using senior DGCA officers computers, have caused speculation those fears may not be totally unfounded. In fact both sons & husband of a recently retired JDG- DGCA and a serving JDG-DGCAsSon are Indigo Pilots. A older complaint against the current CFOI, about Indigos staff allegedly having pervasive access to her office, was silently shelved. A DGCA source speaking on condition of anonymity said

“Indigo staffers had greater pull across DGCA’s different divisions, than we had” they often used to say - “Sirji, aapka agar kuchkaamhoga AED ya DAT mein, tohhamey bata dena, aapkakaamkarvalengey hum”. On the 3rd of September the Chief Pilot of Indigo emailed the DGCA to “relook at implementation of the FDTL” as they “needed a one year extension of the FDTL CAR”.

The DGCA refused any extension of the FDTL CAR date, as it was a High Court order. The Indigo Senior Vice President (Ops) then wrote seeking DGCA exemption on 7 points of Phase-2 FDTL CAR. The DGCAwrote back approving 5 points and rejected point 6 & 7 which was”number of night landings” and “definition of night time”

On the 31 October, the Senior Vice President (Ops) is reported to have emailed the DGCA, that “Indigo will be in full compliance with FDTL CAR”. The DGCA itself has an Octopus structure, with 19 divisions, the DG, an Economic Advisor and many JDGs who are the regional satraps of Indian Aviation. Indigo sought 900 additional flights in winter, which was approved by the DDG Amit Gupta,and his direct superior EA (DGCA) Lalit Chandel. The JDG (DAT) SanjayBrahmanealong with

Director DAT AtulMaindolaas heads of Directorate of Air Transport, are meant to issue NOC’s for aircraft acquisition and to monitor the Pilot strength as per the CAR S- 3- c Part II.

The Flight standards directorate comes under JDG Mr.Bharat Bhushan and Director Mr.Ravindra Jamwal and the CFOI Capt.Shweta Singh who were responsible for supervision of pilot standards.In most cases, like this one, AED and DAT does as it desires and there hardlyappeared to be any coordination amongst divisions, which gives rise to the internal discords that operators exploit.

(Ironicallytwo of these persons responsible for these very approvals and who were responsible for monitoring Indigos FDTL issues/ requests, are now on the investigation team). It’s like putting an arsonist in charge of the Fire department. So where did it all go wrong ? was this just a contrived disaster ?

During the month of November 1-30, over 1200 flights got cancelled.On 26th November, almost 350 flights got cancelled and the DG and the FOIs noticed the spike in cancellations and questioned Indigo. Following this, the SVP (Ops) Indigo again sought clarifications on two points of the FDTL CAR.

At a meeting on 1/12/25 Indigo apologised, admitting their fault and sought 4-8 days for a transition, blaming the software Jeppesen optimiser (used by 50 other airlines) and other things. Indigo once again asked for the two exemptions (Point 6 & 7) of FDTL CAR to help stabilise its operations. This was two days before the Indigo Meltdown.

That meeting had the DG, JDG, CFOI, SFOI, Dy SFOI, 2 FOIs and 2 Asst. Directors and Interglobe was represented by Special Advisor to MD RK Singh, Sr VP (Ops) Capt Mitra, Head of IOCC Jason, Capt Mohan and Capt Palia. The same was minuted with certain clarifications sought by the Indigo team on (a) landing with night window ; (b) delayed flights completed beyond 0200 hrs (c) application of max FDTL extension and standbys.

Importantly, despite the DG ; EA ; JDG ; DDG and CFOI allbeing aware of the cancellation spikes and failure to comply, for which Indigo admitted their fault too, no corrective action was ever ordered by the DG; EA; JDG or other DGCA officials to forestall this mayhem. They allowed Indigo to continue unchecked, in spite of all of them being in the knowledge of the chaos at Indigo (even before the 3rd Dec disruptions)

The next night hell broke loose, as Indigos flights got affected and one by one began getting cancelled and disrupted. By 3rd December it hit 350 flights and by 4th November it crossed 1252 flights.  As the entire Indian aviation ecosystem collapsed, the DGCA called Indigo for an emergency meeting on 4th evening, where Indigo once again apologised and promised to make amends. Indigo was called for an emergency meeting, where asked for the two exemptions that had been refused by DGCA in September (Item 6&7) November and December, of the demand

originally made by the Sr VP (Ops) Indigo- that of Night landings and of definition of night for duties be 0001 to 0500 hours. The DGCA finally allowed Indigo those two exemptions, until February 10th 2026. ! Some Pilots allege they were not rostered and sat at home;  some who were rostered, but transports did not come to pick them up. All these seemed very unusual occurrences at India’s largest airline.

Captain Sam Thomas, ALPA president said “It appears to be an artificially created crisis to arm twist the DGCA into rolling back the rules, which appear to have been successful” As the PMO and MoCA got involved deeper, the Ministry appointed DGCAs worthies as enquiry committee members. Little realising that the same people had fiddled whilst Rome burnt.

The next evening, the DGCA repatriated 4 FOI Pilot inspectors who were on contract to the DGCA, as sacrificial lambs, even though one was in a hospital with Cancer and resigned; one was a national hero having saved 65 passengers from a burning aircraft, one was assistant chief pilot Vistara,  It appeared the DGCA wanted low hanging fruit as scapegoats to quell the burning fires in Indian aviation.

The DGCA’s public view was that they were responsible for supervision and they failed, despite the DG, EA,JDGs & Directors being present at every meeting andtaking (evading) the decisions themselves. The smoke blown into public eyes was quite simply, to conceal the fact that the regulator had lost control of the situation at Indigo. They had their teeth so deep into the system that they allegedly gamed it at every bend.

A senior pilot who was previously with DGCA asked “Why were no international flights affected in this manner ? Was it planned or managed ? How could there have been no verification of the number of aircraft vis-à-vis the number of crew ? If there was, then how did the Pilots mysteriously disappear between the 3rd and 6th of December ?  Where were the Pilots leave & roster records ? What is the pilot utilisation of the last 12 months ? Did Indigo not meet the standard force of Pilots ?” If this was so, then how did the EA-DGCA, JDG-AED &JDG-DAT allow them to increase their domestic and international fleet to add more flights ? Why was there no scrutiny of the DGCA on fleet and route increase ? 

The question is where did Indigo’s pilots disappear? If they had enough pilots for the summer and the DGCA press release claims they were only short of 65 Captains & 65 FOs, then why did almost 4900 cancellations occur ? Captain CS Randhawa, FIP President said “This was a complete violation of the court orders and it has been deliberate by Indigo”

What is supremely strange, thatIndigo did not ask the DGCA for a single FDTL dispensation until the 7th, to position, return, or ensure operation of some flights when all hell was breaking loose across India. A seasoned pilot has questioned “how did Indigo restore their network with no pilot increase and just the two relaxationsor did someone plan this ?”

The trail of emails and requests going back to September and their actions since May 2025, would give rise to very dubiousobvious conclusions. We reached out to CEO-Indigo and VP-Corp Command the DGCA (all officers mentioned herein) for their detailed comments on this matter  via email, but we have got no response until going to press, we shall add their comments as and when received.

Are we as a nation going to run around blindfolded and pretend that this didn’t happen ? or will we accept the broken fix by a broken regulator to repair our aviation sector, rather than cleansing and rebuilding our systems ? An issue like this needs a deeper investigation from an external agency, like the CVCif the government wants to clean up aviation and prepare it for the future. Indian Aviation is still reeling from the tragedy of AI-171 and this Indigo chaos has made headlines all over the world.

As an unnamed Pilot said “We are just one take off away from another 171, if the DGCA continues to close their eyes to this nautanki”. The Prime Ministers dream is the growth of Indian aviation and “make in India”, yet we have such broken systems riddled with dubious actions. As India rockets towards being the world’s third largest Aviation market and have 2000+ aircraft, one wonders if it’s time to clean up Indian Aviation and restructure the regulator?

Sanjay Lazar is an Aviation Expert, Lawyer & CEO Avialaz consultants, with 40 years of experience @sjlazars.