Recently all of you must’ve heard about the Indigo Airline’s crisis, its al over the news channels but barely anyone is talking about why it happened, so lets dig right in and discuss why it happened and how we can prevent such things in future.

Recently, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) introduced and implemented the 2nd part of the Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL), the 1st part of wich got implemented in July, while the 7 extra strict laws got implemented in November which has mainly caused this crisis.

These Limiatation when I read them, I apreciated the fact that they considered the well-being of the pilot but severely neglected the interest and operational capacity of Airlines.

These extra strict guidelines which caused this crisis were:-

1. The Flight Time for pilots was fixed to 8 hours. Let me explain, the flight time and duty time of a pilot are different. The flight time is the time after the engine of the Air Plane has been started by the pilot. It does not matter if the flight is at hold for hours, it is still his flight time.

2. The Pilot’s could now only perform 2 Night Landings, reduced from 6 hours to 2 hours. What this did was that earlier a single pilot was allowed to do 6 Night Landings but now he could do only two and flights at the night time are maximum, you must’ve heard that there is a shortage of pilots, this rule is the reason for sudden shortage of pilots

3. Earlier it was 12 AM to 5 AM was considered night time, but new guidelines changed this from 12AM to 6 AM. I think this was a cunning move by DGCA because many airlines did a trick with the old rule, that if a pilot had completed his 6 Night Landings, the airlines would deliberately set up the Landing time to 5:05 AM or close, this way it would not break the rule eventhough being overall the same thing.

4. Two day break was made mandatory for every pilot. Let me tell you, pilots are alloted their leave days by the airlines, suppose if a pilot was given Break day on Saturday and Sunday, but he took a leave of two days on Thursday and Friday because he was not well, the airlines used to force the pilot to take flights on Saturday and Sunday as he had his break of two days, two days prior to it. But new guidelines drew a clear boundary that they cannot be merged, if the pilot does not feel well on Thursday and Friday like from the above example, its his leave but his Break day cannot be deducted by the airlines, its still his break day.

Now, these changes were good because the Pilot’s association was asking for their implementation from a long time, but the Goverenement severely ignored the capacity of Airlines. The Indigo had actually requested DGCA to post-pone this implementation to February but, maybe DGCA wanted to appear strict and strong, so they ignored it, now the same DGCA has extended the implementation to February. Now DGCA looks more like coward, the complete opposite of what it wanted to appear like.

Now everyone are blaming Indigo for monopoly, but I notice almost everyone is ignoring the unjust of Air India, even in this crucial time they increased the prices to 1 Lakh per person, how does that make sense, if the goverenemnt is so concious, why does it not present a price limit during such chaotic times?

Actually, the rules were pretty good, but its implementation was bad. Rather than reducing the Night Landing limit from 6 dirctly to 2, it rather according to me should have been reduced to 4 and after some years when airlines would be familiar to this pattern, the it should have been reduced to 2. The main problem had been caused due to this specific rule. Also, the goverenment should have had considered the limitations of Airline companies and should have had consulted with them, but they did none of this.

You see, it is pretty easy to sit in an AC room and make rules, our law makers should rather come to the ground and and make decesions based on ground reality, Changes should be brought gradually.

The Goverenment’s reasoning is that they are trying to make Indian Aviation of so called GLOBAL STANDARDS. My question to Indian Goverenment is why didn’t this fanatastic idea came into their mind when Air India was public Airline. The goverenment completely destroyed Air India and sold it, no goverenment services in India meet even the minimum standards but the goverenment is very much interested in preaching rules and International standards to Private Companies. The goverenment should first focus on itself.

All aspects should be considered before implementing a reform. The goverenment had made a similar law, the so called refund Law, if the airlines cancels your flight and does not inform you in advance, you will get full refund plus compensation, but how much has it been implemented.

My suggestion on this is that rather than such refund cases being fought in consumer courts, there should be seperate Court for the Airlines refund and compensation matters under the DGCA and Civil Aviation Ministry. This will enhance efficiency and accountability.

What do you thik about these suggestions of mine, do let me know in the comment section.

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Jain Hind

Jai Bharat