NEW DELHI: The stage is now set for “exemplary” government action against IndiGo — a likely combination of steep fines along with regulatory glare on some airline officials, among other things — for its schedule collapse earlier his month that affected over 5,000 flights and left lakhs of passengers stranded.DGCA on Friday evening submitted its report on the “circumstances leading to operational disruptions” to the civil aviation ministry, which is also expected to shed light on why only the airline’s domestic network collapsed while international flights were barely affected.Aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu had said in Parliament that the government would take “exemplary” action against IndiGo once the probe was over. “An inquiry committee, headed by (DGCA’s) joint DG Sanjay K Bramhane, submitted its report Friday evening. The report is confidential,” said a ministry spokesperson.It is learned that the accountable manager of the airline, an expat, could have his approval withdrawn. While a number of factors led to the schedule collapse at India’s largest domestic airline, the failure of its operations control centre and a breakdown of trust between pilots and expat-led management added fuel to the fire.Govt wants IndiGo to set its house in order, given the critical role the airline plays with over 64% domestic market share and also being the largest airline in terms of international traffic. In banking parlance, IndiGo and Air India Group are now “too big to fail” as all other players in the domestic market are either fledgling or struggling to survive. IndiGo had cancelled only 2.4% of its 2,702 international flights between Dec 1 and 9. Domestic cancellations were 10 times higher at almost 25% of the 17,404 scheduled flights not being operated.IndiGo is also probing this collapse but government action is going to be decided on the basis of the DGCA report. The regulator’s probe panel under joint DG Bramhane was set up on December 5, to “identify underlying causes leading to widespread operational disruptions.” It was also to “assess adequacy of manpower planning, fluctuating rostering systems, and implementation preparedness in the context of (new flight duty norms for pilots).”
