As air travel chaos spiralled across India, IndiGo Airlines cancelled over 500 flights from four major airports on Saturday (Dec 6) even after getting temporary relaxations in hte new flight duty and rest period norms for cockpit crew.
On Saturday, 106 flights were cancelled at Delhi, 124 flights were cancelled at Bengaluru and 109 flights were cancelled at Mumbai airports.
A day before, on Friday, IndiGo cancelled more than 1,000 flights across India causing woes to thousands of flyers and sending airfares skyrocketing.
The Civil Aviation ministry has directed all airlines to follow prescribed fare caps to protect flyers from opportunistic pricing.
For the last four days, air fares have touched five to ten times the usual rates on major sectors. Round-trip fares on busiest routes shot up in the range of Rs 80,000 to Rs 90,000.
A Delhi-Mumbai return ticket was listed at Rs 93,000, while a round-trip fare on Delhi-Bengaluru route showed Rs 92,000, on Kolkata route Rs 94,000 and on Chennai route Rs 80,000.
Airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and other cities were chock-a-bloc with thousands of flyers waiting for their flights. There was total chaos and mismanagement as flyers rushed from one counter to another to know about the status of their flights. Scenes at all major airports were completely chaotic.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi wrote on social media, “IndiGo fiasco is the cost of this Govt’s monopoly model. Once again, it’s ordinary Indians who pay the price – in delays, cancellations and helplessness. India deserves fair competition in every sector, not match-fixing monopolies.”
Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu said, a committee has been set up which will inquire into all this so that it can establish where things went wrong and who did it wrong. He warned that those responsible for this chaos will “pay for it”.
“We are going to take necessary action. This thing should not be left unattended. We are taking strict action on this”, he said.
The question is: What will happen by setting up an inquiry committee? The quality of a leader is known at the time of crisis. The minister, Ram Mohan Naidu, failed in tackling this crisis.
A leader’s job is to anticipate crisis in advance. Was the Civil Aviation Ministry not aware that such chaos could happen if flight duty norms are changed?
Was it not aware that there would be a sudden fall in the number of available pilots? Hundreds of flights would have to be cancelled? And, when flights are cancelled, air fares will take a steep hike?
When thousands of flyers were put into turmoil at airports and there was a big hue and cry, the Minister woke up and became active. And, it took three days for him to find a way out of the crisis.
If flight duty norms had to be temporarily suspended, why were they enforced in the first place? And if the new rules were implemented, why was there no proper assessment of its ramifications?
Had there been meticulous planning in advance, flyers would not have faced crisis and the ministry could have avoided flak from the public.
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