Cleared for takeoff, unfit to land: How India’s aviation giants lost their captains

It was waiting to happen. The June 2025 Ahmedabad crash of an Air India flight, which killed 260 people, and IndiGo's catastrophic operational breakdown — which alone erased Rs 37,000 crore in market cap in December — reflected a deeper problem impacting both airlines, which had made the position of their respective CEOs untenable.

Within a month, both Campbell Wilson of Air India and Pieter Elbers of IndiGo were gone, casualties of a sector where the margin for error at the top is less. 

IndiGo: Death by a thousand cuts

In the case of IndiGo, several issues pointed directly at the inefficiency of top management. Reports about near-misses in the air, an increasingly fragile crew, whistleblowers accusing management of unsafe, fatigue-inducing rosters, and the regulator issuing a show-cause notice to CEO Pieter Elbers over planning and oversight lapses kept adding up.

The airline was also confronted with open letters and whistleblower allegations, with one pointing out that pilot fatigue at IndiGo had reached impairment levels comparable to flying after consuming alcohol above legal limits. Surveys of pilots indicated that they experienced excessive daytime sleepiness and were forced to fly despite feeling too fatigued; there were also reports that one pilot was dismissed after reporting fatigue.

When the airline management failed to prepare for the new Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) effective from November 1, 2025, the consequences were catastrophic, with hundreds of flights cancelled. The airline's biggest asset — its loyal customer base — was left blindsided as it ran a schedule it simply could not legally operate. It had not recruited enough pilots or made timely changes to rosters to incorporate FDTL norms, and published a winter schedule that could not be implemented under the new duty-time and rest limits.

Once the norms came into effect, the crisis hit the roof, leading to a "schedule meltdown" with 4,500–5,500 cancellations over about 10 days and on-time performance dropping to around 4%, causing massive hardship for passengers. The DGCA's show-cause notice made it clear that the "primary cause" of the disruption was IndiGo's "non-provisioning of adequate arrangements" to meet the revised FDTL requirements — a failure of manpower planning, rostering and operational preparedness for safety-driven rules that had been signalled well in advance. The airline kept assuring passengers and stakeholders that it was in control of the situation. The December crisis proved otherwise.

The DGCA, on its part, sacked four of its own flight operations inspectors responsible for overseeing IndiGo's safety and operational compliance, for failing to flag crew-shortfall and FDTL-related risks in time. IndiGo responded a bit late with Jason Herter, the head of IndiGo's operations control centre, leaving the organisation in February. In March, Elbers followed. William (Willie) Walsh, the former British Airways and IAG chief and outgoing IATA director general, is expected to take charge in August.

Air India: A transformation that fell short

In the case of Air India, the Ahmedabad crash hurt the management the most. But several pre- and post-crash incidents showed that the airline, sold by the Government to the Tata Group in January 2022, had management not fully up to the mark.

According to parliamentary disclosures and regulatory briefings, roughly 191 of 267 Air India-group aircraft checked since January 2025 have been flagged for recurring technical defects — making it the Indian carrier with the highest share of such findings. These include delayed or incomplete cabin-pressurisation checks and inconsistent recording of ETOPS data on long-haul aircraft, prompting both EASA and DGCA to step up oversight.

Multiple mid-air technical incidents have been logged since 2022, including cabin pressure loss, in-flight engine shutdowns, fuel and hydraulic alerts, and rejected takeoffs. In January 2026, Air India's technical incident rate hit about 1.09 events per 1,000 flights — roughly four times the level seen in late 2024.

Soon after privatisation, the civil aviation ministry told Parliament it had received about 1,000 complaints against Air India in just three months, covering refunds, overbooking, baggage, staff behaviour and flight-handling. Media reports highlighted an increasing number of complaints, from elderly passengers who were allegedly abandoned at foreign airports to long-haul flights turning back due to clogged lavatories. Commentators and safety experts warned that, while most of these did not result in major mishaps, the frequency of technical occurrences and "small" operational incidents increases the risk that several near-misses will go unreported or even under-investigated.

Under Campbell Wilson, the airline tried to chart a new course. It unveiled Vihaan.AI, a five-year transformation programme launched in 2022, aimed at renewing and growing the fleet, overhauling products and cabins to give them a fresh look, improving on-time performance, and repositioning Air India as a world-class carrier. As of today, it has placed orders for 570 aircraft worth $90 billion — a statement of intent if nothing else. However, the record shows that Vihaan.AI has failed to deliver its intended results by several notches, except in the case of buying a larger number of aircraft.

What went wrong? According to several people associated with the airline, top management made a fundamental mistake by letting go of experienced employees, who were part of Air India before Tata Group took over, creating a vacuum at the middle and senior levels. Had they been retained, their institutional knowledge during the transition would have proved invaluable. It is a lesson the Tata Group must heed as it now searches for Wilson's replacement — someone who can steady the airline, win back passengers, and this time, actually deliver on the promise of transformation.

It would, however,  be wrong to lay all the blame at the doorstep of these two CEOs or the airlines they lead. The airline industry in India faces several challenges, largely due to outdated rules and regulations. The ministry and the regulator, DGCA, are run by bureaucrats, whose knowledge of the industry is at best basic. It needs professionals who should be paid salaries which are among the best in the industry to attract the right talent, and a government that makes decisions without nudges from the national champions. 

(The writer is a Bengaluru-based senior aviation journalist)