Why IndiGo isn't out of danger yet: The pilot crisis that could return in February 2026

IndiGo's five-day operational collapse - marked by hundreds of cancellations, overwhelmed airports and a sudden shortage of flight-ready crew - has forced India's aviation regulator to partially roll back fatigue rules that were years in the making. But even as the DGCA withdraws one part of the revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) norms and offers temporary relief until February 10, former AirAsia CFO Vijay Gopalan says the underlying problem runs deeper and will not be fixed quickly.

Gopalan explains why the crisis was predictable, why IndiGo was hit harder than any other airline, and why the airline may still not have enough pilots even after February 2026 - when fatigue rules could return again.

What triggered the collapse

Gopalan describes the root cause behind the IndiGo crisis in simpler terms. He says the government mandated more rest for pilots. As per the previous regulation, in a week, pilots needed 36 hours of rest. "Now, the government said, you need 48 hours of rest, which means the number of hours available for a pilot to fly gets reduced. Unless you increase the number of pilots, the number of pilots available to operate all your aircraft, therefore, gets reduced logically. That is what has happened."

The increase in mandated rest immediately cut available flying hours by 20 to 25 per cent. With insufficient pilot strength, flight schedules began to unravel.

Why IndiGo was hit harder than others

According to Gopalan, IndiGo's long-standing operating philosophy amplified the shock. "Indigo has been a very lean and mean machine. Always. And this is not something new. The right from the starting, everything has been extremely lean. They run a low -ost carrier." 

Air India, he says, was structurally better placed to withstand the impact. "The only other meaningful airline is Air India. Air India, probably given that many of their aircrafts are anyway grounded, must have had a surplus of pilots from those aircrafts to be able to cater to this."

This surplus offered a cushion that IndiGo did not have.

Why the shortage can't be solved by borrowing pilots

The idea of temporarily shifting pilots from Air India to IndiGo, Gopalan says, is not feasible under Indian regulations. "No, it's not that simple," the former CFO says. "For a pilot to move between two airlines in India, if you're a senior pilot, there's a mandatory notice period of 12 months. And if you're a co-pilot, the notice period is a mandatory 6 months. So, you just can't go poaching people."

The strict notice periods mean relief cannot be sourced quickly from competing carriers.

'This crisis was not sudden'

Gopalan rejects the notion that IndiGo had no time to prepare. "This wasn't all of a sudden. The government issued this notification well in sometime in 2024 itself, telling that this is what is coming." He slammed IndiGo for not adequately preparing for the change. "Truth be told, I think it was an extremely...the only thing that you can attribute this to is a very very lackadical, nonchalant attitude from the airline."

The DGCA had notified the norms in May 2024, began initial compliance in June 2024, and rolled out phased implementation through November 2025.

The arithmetic behind nearly 500 daily cancellations

The scale of the disruption, Gopalan says, mirrors the size of the staffing gap. "The math is fairly simple. They (government) moved the mandatory rest from 36 to 48 hours, which means that is about 20 to 25% reduction in the available flying hours. If you don't staff yourself adequately, then 25% of the flights will have to get cancelled. IndiGo does about 2,200 flights a day. So 25% of it is roughly about 500 to 550.”

This is consistent with the cancellations IndiGo reported in recent days. On Friday, the airlines cancelled its highest over 1,000 flights in a day.  

Why the DGCA rollback offers only temporary relief

The current stabilisation, the former Air Asia CFO suggests, may last only as long as the relaxed rules do. "As of now, the government has yielded and has rolled back these new regulations, which means I sense the thing will come back to normal in the next 3 to 4 days." 

However, the airline remains exposed if full FDTL norms return after February. "But then, post February or March if the government decides to bring this back, IndiGo will have to pull its socks up."

Why IndiGo cannot rebuild pilot strength quickly

Gopalan outlines why hiring cannot solve the shortage in the short term. "No, it's not easy to hire like that," he said when asked whether IndiGo can hire more pilots in the next two months. "As I told you, one is a notice period. The second is, if you want to bring in fresh pilots, they need to get type-rated. They need to go through the trainings. They need to finish the minimum number of flying hours. I don't think Indian infrastructure supports any of those things. It's a long process. It's not going to be easy. I just can't build bench strength so easily."

This suggests that even with aggressive recruitment, IndiGo may not have enough qualified pilots by early 2026 - particularly if fatigue-mitigation rules return in full.