The ministry of civil aviation on Tuesday directed senior officials to conduct on-ground inspections at major airports to assess the situation firsthand and review the challenges passengers are facing.
This comes as the operational breakdown at IndiGo continues to cause chaos at airports around the country.
Officials at the rank of deputy secretary, director and joint secretary have been instructed to reach the designated airports within te next day. The locations under inspection include Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Guwahati, Goa and Thiruvananthapuram, a list reflecting the airports worst affected by passenger distress and repeated cancellations.
The DGCA will also cut the IndiGo schedule by 5%. As the airlines has 2,200 daily flight, the reduction means 110 flights daily.
"Airline has been told. Which all flights to be cut being worked out," officials told TOI.
The ministry, along with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), has been monitoring the situation in real time, since December 3, treating the disruptions to IndiGo operations as an extraordinary situation. A statement from the office of Union minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu confirmed that a high-level review meeting involving top officials was held to take stock of conditions across airports.
Every senior official deployed to airports has been tasked with physically verifying airline functioning and the quality of passenger-related services. Feedback gathered directly from travellers have to be addressed and rectified immediately, the Ministry said in a statement cited by ANI.
The crisis was also addressed in Parliament. On Monday, Union civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu told the Rajya Sabha that the hardship faced by passengers has no connection to the Aircraft Maintenance and Scheduling System (AMSS) and was, rather, the outcome of the airline's internal crew rostering and operational planning.
He also pointed out that consultations on Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) were held with all stakeholders and reiterated that safety standards remain non-negotiable. He further noted that stringent Civil Aviation Requirements (CARs) exist to safeguard passengers hit by delays and cancellations.
Regulatory scrutiny has intensified in parallel to the government intervention. On December 6, the DGCA issued show-cause notices to IndiGo Chief Executive Officer Pieter Elbers and Chief Operating Officer Isidro Porqueras.
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