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IndiGo pilots and crew say management failures left staff to face public ire amid mass cancellations

Amid widespread chaos over mass cancellations of IndiGo flights across the country, the airlines pilots, cabin crew and ground staff have accused the management of poor planning and failing to protect frontline employees during this weeks disruptions. The allegations were made in an open letter shared on X by aviation expert Sanjay Lazar. The employees said the cancellations and delays, which intensified ahead of a new regulatory deadline, mirrored the timing and scale of the compliance requirement so closely that it was impossible to ignore what is visible on the ground. They alleged that the operational breakdown was allowed to worsen in a way that increased pressure on the government for an extension or relaxation of rules. OPEN LETTER FROM INDIGO PILOTS, CREW & GROUND STAFF The recent mass disruptions were not just an operational failure they were a failure of planning and frontline protection. Across airports, it was employees who faced passenger anger, public blame, and personal abuse, Sanjay Lazar (@sjlazars) December 5, 2025 Staff members said frontline workers were left to absorb passenger anger, abuse and public criticism while key operational decisions were made distant from their consequences. They stressed that employees had no role in rostering decisions, hiring freezes or delays in preparedness, yet were forced to bear the brunt of the backlash. The letter called for the airlines management to publicly acknowledge planning failures, clarify that frontline staff were not responsible for the crisis, disclose whether regulatory pressure factored into its strategy, and give assurances that such a situation would not recur. The employees warned that trust within the organisation had been damaged, saying an airline depends on its people as much as its plans, and that rust, once used as leverage, is hard to rebuild. IndiGo has been grappling with operational disruptions due to cabin crew woes and other factors. Sources TNIE spoke to stated that IndiGo is facing a severe shortage of both cockpit and cabin crew and said it is due to a massive recruitment drive by international airline Emirates at Delhi and Mumbai this week. However, Indigo attributed the significant disruption to multiple reasons, including unforeseen operational challenges. The Ministry of Civil Aviation and aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) are closely monitoring the situation regarding IndiGo flight disruptions that have been ongoing for the past few days. On Thursday, IndiGo informed DGCA that it expects to fully restore normal and stable operations only by February 10, 2026. It said that flight cancellations would continue over the next three days and that it would start scaling down flight operations from December 8 to minimize disruptions. IndiGo, which operates over 2,200 flights daily, has scored a mere 35% on the punctuality front in operations on December 2, reveals aviation ministry's data -- the worst score among all leading airlines assessed. An official release from DGCA on Tuesday said a total of 1,232 flights had been cancelled by Indigo in November with 755 of them cancelled due to crew and Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) constraints. Rahul Gandhi blames IndiGo flight chaos on governments monopoly model