DGCA Show Cause: IndiGo CEO, COO List Five Reasons for Flight Disruptions

New Delhi: Taking a stern view of the IndiGo incident, Union Civil Aviation Minister K. Rammohan Naidu on Monday informed the Parliament that the government is viewing this incident very seriously and stringent action will be taken against the airline to set an example for other airlines to see. IndiGo on Monday cancelled about 562 flights and operated 1802 out of its fleet of 2300.

In their response to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) show cause notice, the IndiGo Chief Executive Officer Pieter Eilbers and Chief Operating Officer Isidre Porqueras have listed five reasons and attributed the disruption to "compounding effect of multiple factors," which operated in an "unfortunate and unforeseeable confluence.” They have sought more time from the government to pinpoint what exactly caused the disruptions.

Earlier, responding to a question raised by Congress MP Pramod Tiwari in Rajya Sabha, Minister Ram Mohan Naidu made it clear that the disruption of services was not related to the Automatic Message Switching System (AMSS) system outage, but a direct result of Indigo’s internal planning failures and its crew rostering systems.

“A probe is on, and the government is viewing this very seriously,” he said. The government will take strict action against anyone who doesn't comply with guidelines.

Explaining the timeline, Naidu elaborated that new FDTL guidelines, implemented from November 1, 2025, following a High Court directive, were introduced only after extensive consultations with all stakeholders. Of the 22 guidelines, 15 were rolled out smoothly on July 1, and the remaining seven on November 1.

Subsequently, multiple airlines sought operational variations, given their differing requirements such as night operations, Northeast-heavy routes, and ATR-specific services. The DGCA conducted multiple rounds of consultations and granted permissible variations only after rigorous safety risk assessments.

“There was more than one full month of operations within the new FDTL also. Even on December 1st 2025, a meeting was conducted with Indigo airlines. Certain clarifications were sought, and given by the ministry. Even in this meeting, no challenges were informed to the ministry. No issues were flagged by Indigo. On December 3, once this issue came to the fore (flight cancellations by Indigo), several difficulties were faced by passengers. Immediate measures were taken by Ministry of Civil Aviation, and the situation has been normalized,” said Naidu.

“Safety is non-negotiable. We care for the pilots, crew, system, and passengers. The ministry has been very clear that all airlines must follow the rules,” he emphasised.

Minister Naidu highlighted that DGCA had been in continuous discussions with all airlines throughout November to ensure smooth adaptation to the new norms.

“After a full month of operations under the revised FDTL rules, it became evident that Indigo’s challenges were internal and operational in nature. This is a day-to-day operations matter that Indigo should have maintained. They were responsible for managing their crew and roster. Our role is to ensure FDTL compliance and there has been no compromise on that,” he asserted.

The minister added that an enquiry is underway and reiterated that the government’s response will be firm. “We will take strict action and set an example for any non-compliance in the future,” he said.

The DGCA-appointed panel investigating the flight disruptions at IndiGo is expected to summon the airline's CEO and COO on Wednesday as part of the ongoing probe.

In their reply to the DGCA’s show cause notice, the IndiGo’s CEO and COO have stated it is "realistically not possible to pinpoint the exact cause(s)" at this time due to the complexity and vast scale of operations. They mentioned that the DGCA's manual allows a fifteen-day response timeline and sought more time to conduct a comprehensive 'Root Cause Analysis' (RCA).

The CEO and COO in their reply to DGCA mentioned that the disruption resulted from a combination of the several factors, which coincided in lesser or greater measure. These were, minor technical glitches; schedule changes linked to the start of the winter season; adverse weather conditions; increased congestion in the aviation system; and implementation of and operation under the updated crew rostering rules (Flight Duty Time Limitation Phase II).

The duo added IndiGo had been engaging with the DGCA regarding challenges in implementing the FDTL Phase II and were seeking variations, exemptions, or extensions. “The disruptions began in early December when the compounding factors resulted in a lower On-Time Network Performance, which affected crew availability,” the IndiGo team said.

IndiGo top brass further said that on December 5, 2025, IndiGo took the "drastic measure" of "rebooting" the network by taking a significant number of cancellations to recover stranded customers, ease airport congestion, and reposition crew/aircraft. This allowed services to progressively restore and normalize starting December 6.

The DGCA said it is in process of examination the response and enforcement action as deemed appropriate will be taken in due course.

IndiGo said it has delivered 4,500 bags to the passengers out of the total 9,000, and will deliver the remaining in the next 36 hours. The refunds too, amounting to Rs 827 crore, have been paid in majority cases..

“We have optimized our operations and managed to reduce the number of cancellations which are being notified to customers in advance, and our on-time performance (OTP) has also improved to 91% across the network,” the airline said.