IndiGo crisis | Airline to examine every aspect of recent flight disruptions: Chairman Vikram Singh Mehta

Mumbai: IndiGo Chairman Vikram Singh Mehta on Wednesday said that the airline's board will examine every aspect of the recent flight disruptions at the carrier.

In a video message, he also said that the board has decided to involve external technical experts to work with the management and help determine the root causes that led to the disruption.

"On December 3, an unexpected chain of events led to large-scale flight cancellations ... Thousands of our passengers were left stranded ... I know how much distress this has caused. I want to say very simply and very clearly, we are sorry," Mehta said.

Since last week, IndiGo has cancelled thousands of flights nationwide after failing to plan for tighter safety regulations. The cancellations peaked on December 5 and have declined since. The airline on Tuesday said its operations have stabilised and were back to normal levels.

However, nearly 220 flights were cancelled at three major airports, including Delhi and Mumbai, on Wednesday.

"We did not meet your expectations during those days. And for that, we are truly, truly sorry," he said.

Over the past week, there has been a lot of criticism, "some fair, some not," Mehta said.

"The fair criticism is that the airline let you down. We owe answers to our customers, to our government, to our shareholders and, equally importantly, to our employees. We assure you that we will examine every aspect of what went wrong and we will learn from it," he said.

The board has decided it will involve external technical experts to work with the management and help determine the root causes and ensure "corrective action" so that this level of disruption never occurs again, he stated.

He, however, said that there are some allegations like IndiGo engineering the crisis and "compromising safety" are "untrue”.

"IndiGo has followed the pilot fatigue (FDTL) rules as they came into effect. We operated under the new rules throughout… both in July and November. We did not attempt to bypass them, nor did we do anything that negatively impacted our unblemished track record of safety," he said.

The disruptions of last week did not happen because of any "deliberate action", Mehta said.

"They happened because of a combination of internal and unanticipated external events", including minor technical glitches, scheduled 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, Mehta said.

It is significant to note here that other Indian carriers also faced these "unanticipated external" events, but their operations remained largely unaffected.

"Clearly, this combination of events pushed our systems beyond their limits," he stated.

The Board has been closely involved with this matter for many months, Mehta said, adding "both the Board and the Risk management committee have received relevant information from the management on the implementation of the rules."

The crisis management team set up by the board has been meeting every day, he said.

"The company has erred. There is no denying this," Mehta said.

Aviation regulator DGCA has decided to constitute an oversight team "in view of passenger inconvenience caused due to large-scale disruptions in the operations of IndiGo Airlines at various airports across the country".

It has also summoned IndiGo Chief Executive Pieter Elbers to appear at its office on Thursday and submit a complete report, along with comprehensive data and updates, relating to the recent operational disruptions, according to a statement.