The making of the aviation mess

THE aviation mess that unfolded last week was not a story of seasonal haze or visibility issues, and certainly not a story of sudden weather disruptions. What India witnessed was the collapse of a policy framework that had been years in the making, undone in a single meeting behind closed doors.

Thousands of passengers were left stranded across airports, airlines scrambled for cover, and the government responded with a decision that has now raised more questions than answers, placing newly revised fatigue-management rules on hold, despite clear judicial directions, scientific evidence and repeated warnings from pilots and the unions.

The week began with IndiGo cancelling flights at an unprecedented scale, grounding operations across key metro cities, leaving terminals overflowing with confused, exhausted passengers. By mid-week, more than a thousand cancellations had been reported. Queues stretched across departure halls and airline staff struggled to pacify angry flyers whose plans had collapsed without explanation. But the cause, unusually, had nothing to do with weather, air quality, runway closures, or airport congestion.

IndiGo’s attempt to realign its roster to comply with the revised Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) rules — norms announced in February and implemented in two stages, July 1 and November 1 — had resulted in an immediate shortage of adequately rested pilots. The airline, already functioning on high utilisation and minimal spare capacity, simply did not have enough crew members who met the new rest requirements.

For months, the aviation ecosystem knew this day was coming. The revised fatigue rules were not sudden. They had been debated, drafted, circulated, litigated, and defended across years. They were the product of long-standing concerns raised by pilots that duty-time limits were significantly weaker than international standards, allowing longer duties, shorter breaks, more night operations and more back-to-back early-morning departures than were considered safe elsewhere.

The new rules introduced tighter caps, limits on duty hours during circadian-low periods between 2 am and 6 am, reduced maximum night-time flying, restrictions on consecutive night landings, clearer fatigue-risk thresholds and most crucially, a minimum 48-hour weekly rest requirement aligned with global fatigue-mitigation frameworks.

These changes were not cosmetic. They were essential corrections to a system in which pilots often carry sleep debt without realising its cumulative effect. Fatigue is not dramatic like a mid-air engine failure; it is subtle, often invisible, and always dangerous. It affects judgement, reaction time, situational awareness, and multi-tasking, all skills without which aircraft operations cannot remain safe.

International studies have repeatedly shown that fatigued pilots are more prone to errors and slower to detect abnormalities. Former safety panels in India acknowledged these concerns. Global regulators acted years ago. India, after lagging behind for long, had finally decided to move in the same direction.

And then it moved backwards. On December 5, the Ministry of Civil Aviation decided to place the revised Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) Civil Aviation Requirements in abeyance. The justification offered was that the industry required “more time” to transition and that immediate enforcement would cause widespread disruption to passengers. A committee of inquiry, the Ministry said, would be constituted to examine the sequence of events that led to the crisis, assess airline preparedness, and review the operational impact of the new norms.

The DGCA was directed to gather detailed data from all airlines for the committee’s analysis.

But for pilots’ unions, the Ministry’s move was nothing short of a rollback of essential safety protections. Following the Ministry’s order, the Airline Pilots Association of India (ALPA India) issued a statement condemning the decision. “This step directly contradicts the honourable court’s directions, which mandate the enforcement of fatigue-mitigation standards rooted in aviation science. Keeping the FDTL in abeyance not only undermines judicial authority, but also places pilots and passengers at heightened risk by delaying essential fatigue protections,” ALPA India said.

The association urged the Ministry and the regulator to “uphold the court’s order in both letter and spirit and to prioritise the safety of the pilots and travelling public above all commercial considerations”.

This reference to the judiciary is not rhetorical. It goes to the heart of the controversy. The Delhi High Court, in more than one matter concerning fatigue and pilot welfare, had emphasised that fatigue-mitigation is a safety issue, not a labour dispute. It stressed that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has a statutory obligation to protect passengers, and that scientific fatigue norms cannot be indefinitely delayed. When the revised FDTL rules were notified earlier this year, they were widely understood to be the direct outcome of the court’s insistence that safety cannot wait for convenience.

Yet the Ministry’s decision to suspend these very rules has not been accompanied by any reference to the court’s earlier observations. No statement has clarified whether the judiciary was consulted. No explanation has been given on how a scientifically backed, court-aligned safety standard can be paused on administrative grounds.

What makes the rollback even more striking is the chronology. Airlines had months to prepare. Rosters were supposed to be adjusted well in advance. The regulator had repeatedly stated that the norms were not negotiable. Yet IndiGo, the largest carrier with the deepest bench strength, entered December underprepared. Instead of assisting or compelling compliance, the system responded by suspending the rules themselves. It was a reversal few in the industry expected, and even fewer can justify.

The inquiry committee announced by the Ministry is now expected to examine this breakdown. As per the Ministry, the inquiry will examine what went wrong at IndiGo, determine accountability wherever required for appropriate action, and recommend measures to prevent similar disruptions in the future, ensuring that passengers do not face such hardships again.

But the events of the past week have exposed a deeper, more uncomfortable truth: the country’s aviation system is running with far less buffer than passengers assume. When one airline falters, the entire network strains. When a regulatory deadline arrives, operators scramble. And when the fatigue rules — designed to prevent accidents — are inconvenient, they can be paused.

The impact on passengers has been immediate and harsh. Overnight, terminals in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Kolkata turned into holding areas for thousands stranded without clarity. Elderly passengers waited for hours without assistance. Important medical travel, job interviews, academic admissions, and family emergencies were thrown into disarray. All this not due to weather, technical failures, or air-traffic limitations, but due to inadequate roster planning.

The Ministry said its priority was to stabilise operations and restore public confidence. Airlines say they need more time to adjust staffing. But the unions argue that stability built on suspended safety norms is illusory and that the cost of fatigue will eventually be paid by those on board.

The Delhi High Court’s voice echoes quietly behind this storm. Fatigue rules exist because safety cannot be compromised. They are not suggestions. They are not optional. They are obligations.

The inquiry committee may eventually assign responsibility. Airlines may redesign rosters. The DGCA may revise or reissue norms. But till the central question is answered — why safety rules, grounded in science and supported by judicial direction, were suspended instead of enforced — turbulence in the sector will continue long after the cancelled flights are forgotten.

Because in the end, this crisis has shown that fatigue wasn’t just a risk in the cockpit. It was a risk across the entire system, a system that blinked when it needed to uphold the one principle aviation cannot abandon: safety above convenience.