Shakti Lumba

Rule Changes

Prominent critic of DGCA concessions to IndiGo

In early December 2025, India's largest airline, IndiGo, plunged the country's aviation system into chaos by cancelling more than 1,000 flights across four days, shutting down all departures from New Delhi and causing cascading disruptions at major hubs. The disruption was triggered by IndiGo's failure to staff adequately for Phase 2 of India's revised Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules, which took full effect on November 1 and were designed to combat chronic pilot fatigue by boosting weekly rest to 48 hours and sharply limiting night-time landings. Facing mounting public anger and political pressure, India's aviation regulator partially walked back core elements of the new fatigue regime, granting IndiGo a one-time exemption from night-duty caps and scrapping a rule that barred airlines from counting pilots' leave as part of their weekly rest, while keeping the expanded weekly rest requirement intact.

Updated Feb 5