Indian airline IndiGo on Friday announced the appointment of Chief Aviation Advisors LLC, led by Captain John Illson, to review and assess the recent operational disruptions. The airline has been facing major issues, leading to over 3000 flight cancellations and multiple delays, affecting thousands of customers.
Independent review to be led by John Ilson
The advisors, led by Captain Ilson, will conduct an independent review of this issue and its contributing factors. Captain Ilson has over four decades of aviation experience across the FAA, ICAO, IATA and major global carriers.
The airline, in a statement, said:
“With an illustrious track record in global air transport, he brings extensive expertise in global aviation strategy, customised consulting, safety leadership, setting international standards, and new aircraft technologies.”
The goal of bringing in external advisors is to assess the root cause of the recent disruption and how this can be improved to prevent a similar incident in the future. This decision comes along the lines of the recommendation of the Crisis Management Group (CMG) constituted by the IndiGo Board.
An IndiGo spokesperson further added:
“As part of its assessment, the CMG advised commissioning an independent expert review in the matter. With the Board’s approval now in place, the review will begin at the earliest, and the independent expert reviewer will submit a comprehensive report to the Board upon completion.”
The move comes after IndiGo faced major disruptions, beginning December 3, leading to thousands of flight cancellations and delays, leaving passengers stranded. India’s aviation Ministry had summoned CEO Peter Elbers on Tuesday. Elbers later posted a statement on social media stating that flight operations were now being stabilised. Indian authorities have demanded that the airline cut operations by 10% which could lead to over 200 cancelled flights daily.
Airline refutes allegations
IndiGo’s chairman Vikram Singh Mehta, in a statement posted on X and LinkedIn, refuted claims that the disruptions were engineered to influence government rules and that the board was not involved. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) granted the airline temporary expecting under the FDTL rules till it was able to manage its operations.
Mehta declined the allegations, stating that:
“The disruptions of last week did not happen because of any deliberate action. They happened because a combination of internal and unanticipated external events, including minor technical glitches, scheduled changes linked to the start of the winter, adverse weather conditions, increased congestion in the aviation system and implementation of an operation under the updated crew rostering rules. This is not an excuse. This is simply the truth. Clearly, this combination of events pushed our systems beyond their limits.”
The airline acknowledged the issues, stating that as a result of the disruptions from 3-5 December, customers were stranded for hours while a “number of them were severely impacted due to congestion.”
The airline has said that it will offer travel vouchers worth We will offer travel vouchers worth ₹10,000 to such severely impacted customers.
It said:
“These travel vouchers can be used for any future IndiGo journey for the next 12 months. This compensation is in addition to the commitment under the existing Government guidelines as per which, IndiGo will provide compensation of INR 5000 to INR 10,000, depending on the block time of the flight, to those customers whose flights were cancelled within 24 hours of departure time.”
Mehta, in his statement, said that the airline has processed refunds worth over one billion rupees while hotel and travel assistance are being provided. According to a stock filing, the airline was set to operate 2,000 flights on Friday according to its revised scaled-down schedule, while having operated over 1,950 flights on Thursday. There were four flight cancellations on Thursday owing to “unfavourable weather”, it said. It further added:
“All our 138 operational destinations are connected, and our on-time performance has been consistently normal as per IndiGo standards.”
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