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INDIA
The stringent government order comes as the budget airline faces its worst operational crisis in its near 20-year history. On Tuesday, IndiGo cancelled more than 400 flights, with airports serving Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai being the worst hit. Here are more details.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on Tuesday ordered IndiGo to curtail its operations by 10 percent while continuing to cover all its destinations like before as the airline continued to cancel hundreds of flights daily. The stringent government order comes as the Gurugram-headquartered budget airline faces its worst operational crisis in its near 20-year history. On Tuesday, IndiGo reportedly cancelled more than 400 flights, with airports serving Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai being the worst hit.
Earlier in the day, the union ministry has summoned IndiGo's chief executive officer (CEO) Pieter Elbers to provide an update on the crisis, after which the government order was announced. Ahead of his visit to the ministry, Elbers -- who has been IndiGo CEO since September 2022 -- said the airline was "back on its feet." He apologised for the chaos over the past week and thanked customers for their continued support to the airline. "We have let you down when a major operational disruption happened and we are sorry for that," he said in a statement.
The MoCA directive comes after the government warned of a crackdown against IndiGo, India's largest airline that currently holds over 60 percent domestic market share. Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu said in the parliament that no airline will be allowed to cause hardships to travelers. For more than a week now, IndiGo has cancelled hundreds, and sometimes over a thousand, of flights on an everyday basis -- leaving countless travelers stranded at airports across the country.