MoCA holds meeting with IndiGo CEO, seeks refund and roster status: Sources

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on Tuesday summoned IndiGo CEO Peter Elbers to know the operational status of the airline, sources told India Today. Elbers was called to the ministry HQ.

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu and MoCA Secretary Samir Sinha held a meeting with Elbers, who was asked about the operational status of the airline, whose services have been disrupted due to new flight duty norms. 

During the meeting, the ministry sought to know the airline's efforts for passenger care, refund status, roster status and baggage (return) status.

Earlier today, the IndiGo CEO claimed that the airline was back on its feet and operations were stable. In the latest video message, Elbers also said that lakhs of customers, whose flights were cancelled or delayed, have already received their full refunds, and the process is ongoing on a daily basis. 

Elbers, however, did not share any update on the compensation to customers, whose flights were cancelled at the last minute or were hugely delayed. 

As per the Civil Aviation Ministry's passenger charter, if an airline fails to inform a passenger of his/her flight cancellation at least two weeks before departure, compensation is legally mandatory. Also, the airline has to provide compensation automatically, without passengers asking for it. 

"IndiGo is back on its feet, and our operations are stable. We've let you down when a major operational disruption happened, and we're sorry for that," Elbers said. "Earlier, we had indicated to normalise between December 10-15. I can confirm now that today, as of December 9, our operations are fully stabilised, which means flights reflecting on our website are scheduled to operate with an adjusted network," he added. 

The CEO said that the restoration of IndiGo's flights was being done on a "war footing". On December 5, the airline operated only 700 flights. "Thereafter, gradually yet steadily improving to 1,500 on December 6, 1,650 on December 7, 1,800 on Monday and Tuesday, more than 1,800," he said.