Indigo which is the largest Airlines Operator in India just bullied the government using people as a weapon.
It's been absolute chaos at Indian airport for the past 3 days. IndiGo cancelled over 1000 flights and the passengers are stranded in airports and no way of connecting with their appointments no matter the urgency of it.
If you are from India you know that IndiGo is not some fancy airline. You can fly IndiGo for as low as 2000 rupees and it's one of the very few airlines in the world that actually makes profit on a regular basis.
So here's what happened. India made a new rule that pilots must get a rest of 48 hours every week which was earlier just 36 hours. So literally half a day extra in a week. Every airline prepared for this, they adjusted accordingly because the rule was made in January 2024. IndiGo had 2 full years and still did nothing because IndiGo runs planes like buses where staffs are overworking but underpaid.
So if you give half a day extra rest to a pilot you need to hire a new pilot to fill that time and they don't want to do that.
They let the people suffer, let the people make noise and now the government is supposed to withdraw the rule that was made for passenger safety. Indigo is the largest Indian aviation company with over 2,000 flights and 60% share in the market and with such a monopoly, they just bullied the government using people to suspend the rule until the issue gets fixed.
Now if you ask me I feel like this is just a blatant misuse of power and Indigo should definitely be penalized and a precedent should be created where in future no other company tries to recreate the same scenario.
