DGCA has imposed a fine of Rs 22.2 crore on IndiGo on Saturday. Additionally, the DGCA has directed IndiGo to remove Jason Herter, Senior Vice President, Operations Control Centre, from his current operational responsibilities. The regulator said Jason had failed to systematically plan and timely implement revised duty and rest rules for pilots. Not only this, DGCA has also warned the airline company’s CEO Peter Albers and COO Isidre Porqueras. DGCA has taken this action against the airline company in the case of cancellation of a large number of flights by IndiGo last month, due to which lakhs of passengers across the country had to face many problems. Let us tell you that Indigo had canceled more than 5000 flights from December 2 to December 10 last year. Apart from this, hundreds of IndiGo flights were operated with considerable delay.
What did DGCA say in the statement
In a statement issued on Saturday, DGCA said that this action against IndiGo has been taken after reviewing the operational failures of the airline company, which had caused massive inconvenience to the passengers. DGCA has imposed a fine of Rs 3 lakh every day for 68 days on the country’s largest airline company, along with a separate fine of Rs 1.80 crore on IndiGo. Due to which the total fine imposed on the company became Rs 22.2 crore.
The company had completely failed to follow the new rules related to FDTL.
In December itself, DGCA had taken a major step against IndiGo and ordered to reduce 10 percent of the total flights operated by the company. On December 8, Union Civil Aviation Minister K. Rammohan Naidu had informed the Rajya Sabha in this matter that the new standards related to flight duty timelines (FDTL) prepared after the order of the High Court had a total of 22 FDTL guidelines, out of which 15 were implemented from July 1, 2025 and the remaining 7 were implemented from November 1, 2025.
DGCA had issued notice to top officials of Indigo
Rammohan Naidu had said in the Upper House that many stakeholders, including IndiGo, were consulted regarding the implementation of FDTL and the government had made it very clear that all airlines have to follow the rules without compromising on safety. However, IndiGo completely failed to follow the new guidelines. DGCA had issued a show cause notice to IndiGo CEO Peter Albers and COO Isidre Porqueras in this matter.
DGCA had told Peter Albers that he had failed in performing his duty.
“As the CEO, you are responsible for ensuring effective management of the airline, but you have failed in your duty to run reliable operations and make timely arrangements to provide necessary facilities to passengers,” the DGCA had said in a notice sent to IndiGo CEO Peter Elbers. The notice said that the main reason for the disruption in flight service was the airline not making proper arrangements to meet the changed requirements for smoothly implementing the approved FDTL scheme.
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