IndiGo chaos highlights monopoly risks and planning failures, Air Deccan's Gopinath warns

IndiGo’s meltdown last week was not an accident waiting to happen—it was a crisis meticulously engineered through years of complacency, overconfidence and a misplaced belief that sheer market dominance could bend regulation to its will. 

When more than a thousand flights collapsed in a single day, stranding nearly two lakh passengers across the country, the government had no option but to suspend the new pilot duty-time rules. According to Air Deccan founder G. R. Gopinath, the cancellation of more than a thousand IndiGo flights, triggered by the government’s decision to suspend the newly introduced flight duty time limitations (FDTL) for pilots, left nearly two lakh passengers stranded and underscored how vulnerable the nation has become to the failures of a single airline.

In his view, the chaos illustrates the dangers of market concentration, with IndiGo now functioning as a near-monopoly after years of attrition among rival carriers.

In a news column, Gopinath points out that IndiGo’s rise accelerated after multiple competitors collapsed or shrank—the fall of Kingfisher in 2012, the bankruptcies of Jet Airways and GoAir in 2019 and 2023, and the drastic reduction of SpiceJet’s fleet. With Air India still struggling despite the Tata Group takeover and its merger with AirAsia and Vistara, he argues that the country’s aviation ecosystem has become dangerously dependent on one dominant player.

He stresses that airlines operate on a delicate balance of stringent safety regulations and commercial imperatives. While global bodies such as ICAO, the FAA and EASA strictly enforce FDTL norms to prevent pilot fatigue, India’s earlier guidelines lagged behind, prompting pushback from pilot associations. The updated DGCA rules—capping annual duty at 900 hours, imposing monthly and daily limits, and restricting night landings—were introduced after extensive consultation and provided a 20-month compliance window.

Gopinath asserts that IndiGo failed to prepare for this transition. Despite the extended timeline, the airline did not recruit the additional pilots required under the new norms—13 to 14 per aircraft for low-cost carriers, compared to 11 for full-service airlines. Other airlines, he notes, began roster adjustments and system upgrades well in advance, whereas IndiGo appeared to assume that its market heft would secure regulatory concessions.

The result, he says, was predictable: a shortage of cockpit crew, rostering failures and a cascading operational collapse. He adds that recruitment pipelines, training, and technical upgrades to scheduling software require significant planning, and IndiGo’s aggressive expansion—including wet-leasing Boeing wide-bodies and placing large Airbus orders—may have diverted attention from core operational readiness.

Gopinath argues that the crisis highlights a larger policy concern. If India had a diversified aviation market with multiple low-cost carriers, the shock would not have paralysed the entire system. The episode, he says, demonstrates the risks of allowing a single airline to dominate and underscores the urgent need for competitive balance and regulatory vigilance in India’s aviation sector.