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New Delhi: IndiGo cancelled 550 flights on Thursday, thus setting an unwanted record of the highest number of cancellations since its inception. The flights were cancelled due to operational disruptions, said the airlines. This was the third day in a row that the airline was forced to cancel flights from multiple locations.
The 20-year-old airline is grappling with major issues like technology woes and cabin crew shortage, which has caused this disruption. In order to check cancellations and prevent passengers from getting impacted, the airline has started pre-planned service cancellations and is trying to normalise operations.
The airline has often made punctuality as its Unique Selling Point (USP). But things seemed to have gone for a toss this time, as they recorded an on-time performance of 19.7 per cent on Wednesday, a steep fall from 35 per cent reported on Tuesday. The airline operated 2,300 flights daily.
Senior DGCA officials have already met with IndiGo officials and asked them to find a solution to this problem at the earliest. CEO of IndiGo, Pieter Elbers, was quoted by NDTV as telling staff members that restoring operations, normalising schedules and bringing back 'punctuality' will not be an easy task.
Major cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata reported flight cancellations on Thursday. While 118 flight cancellations were reported from Mumbai, Bangalore saw 100 IndiGo flights cancelled, Hyderabad 75, Kolkata 35, Chennai 26 and 11 flights were cancelled in Goa, reported PTI. Flight cancellations were also reported from other airports, across India.
IndiGo admitted that it could not appropriately judge crew requirements and this led to staff shortage. Apart from the new norms, regarding flying hours limit for crew members, the flight operations were also impacted due to winters and congestion, said the airlines in a statement.
In order to normalise operations, the airlines has said that they have temporarily rolled back the decision to count night duty from midnight to 6 am. So now the night duty hours would be from 12 am to 5 am, they said. Apart from this the cap on night landing to 2 was also put on hold.
Talking about the staff shortage, IndiGo told DGCA that following the court directives on Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) norms, the airlines failed to estimate the actual number of pilots needed for FDTL Phase 2. The number of pilots needed to implement the new norms exceeded expectations, they said.
According to IndiGo, the staffing requirements post the implementation of Phase 2 FDTL rose considerably. This was especially true for night time operations where slot availability is limited and pilot duty time restrictions are tighter, they added.
The crew rostering patterns in all airlines have changed considerably after the new norms came into force. The new rules give priority to fatigue management and pilot safety and have led to considerable changes in the airline's rostering system.
