IndiGo: The Arrogance of Market Power?

For the last few days, India’s largest airline, IndiGo, has been in meltdown mode. The total number of cancellations has reportedly crossed 1,000 flights, and thousands of passengers have been stranded across major airports. But the real story runs much deeper than a scheduling collapse.

What Actually Triggered the Crisis?

These disruptions weren’t caused by weather or technical failures. They were triggered by DGCA’s new Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) rules. These are safety norms that cap how long pilots can fly without adequate rest. These rules exist so that no pilot flies while mentally or physically fatigued, a basic requirement in global aviation.

But when the rules kicked in fully, a large part of IndiGo’s crew hit their legal flying limits simultaneously, resulting in an operational collapse.

A Crisis That Everyone Saw Coming

What makes the situation more worrying is that none of this came as a surprise. DGCA had notified the revised FDTL regulations on 8 January 2024, with an initial implementation planned for 1 June 2024. When airlines pushed back, the regulator postponed the deadline and shifted to a phased rollout — Phase 1 from 1 July 2025, and full enforcement from 1 November 2025.

These timelines were known for almost eighteen months, giving airlines ample time to redesign rosters, hire additional pilots, and build adequate safety buffers. Yet IndiGo kept seeking extensions instead of preparing. So when the final phase went live on 1 November 2025, a huge portion of its crew immediately became unavailable, and the entire system collapsed.

The worrying part is that DGCA has now given a one-time exemption, relaxing the very safety rules it defended for two years.

Is IndiGo Taking the Regulator for Granted?

With about 65% domestic market share, IndiGo is now larger than all other Indian airlines combined. On many major routes, passengers have virtually no alternative, giving the airline a monopoly-like grip over India’s skies.

Such dominance, combined with IndiGo’s recent actions, raises unavoidable questions:

Was this a genuine operational limitation or a deliberate pushback against FDTL norms?
Did IndiGo allow the crisis to escalate, knowing its size would pressure DGCA to bend?
Does market dominance make an airline believe compliance is optional?
And most importantly, does such power create the sense that even regulators can be negotiated with?

A Moment of Reckoning

For any dominant company, the real test is not how large it becomes, but how responsibly it behaves when no one else can challenge it. Aviation, more than any industry, runs on public confidence and regulatory integrity. When a single player grows powerful enough to unsettle that balance, the entire ecosystem feels the shock.

This moment is an opportunity for IndiGo and for India’s regulators to reset expectations on transparency, preparedness, and respect for safety. Leadership is not about scale; it is about stewardship. The skies will remain safe only when both institutions and industry act with that clarity.