Government will curtail IndiGo's winter flight schedule, slots will be reallocated to other carriers: Civil Aviation Minister

Ram Mohan Naidu says the government plans to take strict action against IndiGo to 'set an example' for airlines that violate regulations

Civil Aviation Minister K Ram Mohan Naidu has said the government will curtail IndiGo's winter flight schedule and allocate it to other operators following the airline's recent large-scale operational disruptions.

"We will curtail IndiGo's routes. They are currently operating 2,200 flights. We will definitely curtail them," Naidu told Doordarshan news channel on Monday.

The Minister also said that refunds worth Rs 745 crore have been given for 7,30,655 cancelled PNRs from December 1 to 8 (as of 5 pm).

Besides this, he said that 6,000 of the 9,000 passenger bags have already been delivered, and the remaining ones were scheduled to be delivered by Tuesday.

Naidu told Rajya Sabha on Monday that the government plans to take strict action against IndiGo to "set an example" for airlines that violate regulations.

Naidu attributed the cancellation of hundreds of flights over the past week to IndiGo's "internal crisis" after the new passenger safety norms came into force.

"We are not taking this situation lightly. We are doing an inquiry and will take very, very strict action... we will set an example for all the other airlines," Naidu said in reply to questions in the Rajya Sabha.

Airline to face penalties?

While he did not elaborate on the action, Moody's Ratings said the airline could face potential penalties.

"The disruptions are credit negative because IndiGo could face significant financial damage from loss of revenue because of flight cancellations, refunds and other compensation to affected customers, along with potential penalties imposed by DGCA," Moody's said.

In signs of the size of disruptions, the government said 5,86,705 IndiGo tickets were cancelled between December 1 and 7, with refunds amounting to Rs 569.65 crore issued to affected passengers.

A total of 9,55,591 tickets were cancelled between November 21 and December 7, and Rs 827 crore was refunded.

"After the recent disruptions, IndiGo has recorded considerable and consistent improvement across the network. Today, we are all set to operate over 1,800 flights, connecting all stations that we operate to," IndiGo said in a statement on Monday.

"We have optimised 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 per cent across the network."

On Monday, IndiGo shares fell over 8 per cent — its biggest plunge since February 2022 — and marked a seventh day of selling that's cumulatively slashed USD 4.5 billion from the company's market value.