Every few years, India gets a reminder of just how fragile its aviation ecosystem really is. This time, it took a week-long meltdown at IndiGo a prominent airline service, hundreds of cancellations, airports reduced to holding zones for luggage, and passengers stranded across the country, to expose a truth policymakers prefer to ignore: when a major chunk of the market is controlled by just two airlines, one company’s internal crisis becomes a national emergency. IndiGo’s shortage of pilots, triggered by the rollout of long-delayed fatigue-management rules, should have disrupted one airline. Instead, it paralysed India’s entire aviation network .
Fares shot up to Rs40,000-80,000, refunds lagged for days, and alternative carriers simply didn’t have the capacity to absorb the shock. In a competitive market, passengers would have options. In India’s duopolistic one, they had none. The fatigue rules themselves were not the villain. Pilot exhaustion is a well-documented safety threat globally, and aligning India’s Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) with international norms is long overdue. But the transition was mishandled on every side. Regulators announced the rules almost two years ago, then delayed and re-delayed their enforcement, only to push through implementation abruptly, leaving airlines scrambling. IndiGo, famous for tight turnarounds and a “lean-staffing” model, underestimated how many additional pilots it needed. The regulator underestimated how quickly a brittle system can collapse.
This combination, poor planning meets a market with almost no buffers, is why passengers ended up paying the price. What’s missing from the conversation is the structural cause: India’s aviation sector lacks depth. When just two airlines, IndiGo and Air India, hold over 90 per cent of market share, the entire system depends on their ability to function flawlessly. No modern industry should operate on this kind of razor’s edge. The German aviation sector didn’t collapse when Lufthansa suffered an IT system outage. The US doesn’t grind to a halt when Delta faces a staffing shortfall. In those markets, multiple players create resilience. In India, passengers face a system where when “one airline falters, everyone suffers.” And consumers suffered immensely.
People missed job interviews, medical appointments and weddings. Some reached airports at dawn only to discover their flights cancelled with no SMS alert. Refunds trickled in only after government orders. A country aiming to become the world’s third largest aviation market cannot operate with outdated passenger protection norms. India needs a clear and enforceable Air Passenger Bill of Rights, one that guarantees automatic funds, timely alerts and fair compensation for last minute cancellations, without burdening airlines under knee-jerk regulations. But consumer rights alone won’t fix a market with too little competition. For genuine resilience, India must remove barriers that make it hard for new airlines to scale: high ATF taxes that erode margins, slot allocation policies that reward in cumb ents, and regulatory unpredictability that discourages investment. The government says India has room for five major airlines.
That won’t happen without policy reforms that make market entry easier and ensure a level playing field. IndiGo’s crisis wasn’t just about fatigue rules or rostering miscalculations. It was a stress test for the entire sector, and the system failed. India’s aviation future depends on embracing what every competitive, consumer-friendly market eventually learns: choice is stability. The more players in the sky, the fewer passengers will ever be stranded because one airline miscalculated. If India wants a resilient aviation ecosystem, it must stop firefighting and start enabling competition. The skies need more carriers, more capacity, and more consumer choice. Otherwise, this won’t be the last time passengers pay for a crisis they didn’t create.
Originally published here
