The week-long disruption at IndiGo—India’s largest airline—resulted in more than 1,500 flight cancellations and widespread delays across major airports, prompting the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to issue a show-cause notices to chief executive officer (CEO) Pieter Elbers and other executives for failing to ensure reliable operations.
The crisis has deeper roots in a decade-long legal dispute over the rights of pilots to regulated work hours and strict enforcement of fatigue-mitigation norms.
Before IndiGo went into chaos, a contempt plea was already pending in the Delhi High Court alleging that the DGCA had failed to implement the new pilot Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL), contrary to its undertakings before the court. The court is scheduled to take up this matter on 15 December.
More petitions have been filed seeking judicial intervention over the ongoing disruption in IndiGo flights. One plea mentioned before the Supreme Court on Monday argued that there are a large number of vacancies in IndiGo and passengers are suffering due to the continuing cancellations and delays.
Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi expressed concern and observed that people have been stranded and many may have health issues requiring urgent travel. The bench did not immediately order listing of the matter.
A plea before the Delhi High Court sought directions for refunds for passengers affected by the crisis. The court listed the matter for hearing on 10 December.
IndiGo and the DGCA did not respond to Mint’s queries seeking comment until the time of publication. Mint explains the legal background behind the IndiGo crisis and what lies ahead.
How the crisis escalated
IndiGo entered its seventh straight day of disruptions on Monday, with over 300 cancellations in a single day—134 in Delhi, 127 in Bengaluru and 71 in Chennai. The airline expects stability to return by 10 December, targeting 1,650 daily flights (against 2,200 earlier) after the DGCA relaxed its pilot rest rules for IndiGo.
The regulator issued show-cause notices to airline CEO Elbers and other executives on Saturday and sent a similar notice to the accountable manager on Sunday, alleging failure to ensure adequate staffing and passenger care. Elbers, who had been directed to respond within 24 hours of receiving the notice, has been given an additional 24 hours to reply.
What is the contempt case about?
In November—before the operational meltdown began—the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) filed a contempt petition in the Delhi High Court against DGCA director-general Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, alleging non-compliance with undertakings given to the court in February and April on the phased rollout of FDTL rules. The DGCA had granted Air India temporary relief in FDTL for its Boeing 787 Dreamliner on European routes, citing longer flight durations due to Pakistan’s airspace closure.
The petition, seen by Mint, argued that despite promising strict adherence, the DGCA granted extensions and exemptions that enabled airlines to postpone the operational changes stipulated in the Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) 2024 beyond 1 November 2025 without seeking the court’s permission.
The petition stated that the DGCA’s actions appeared to be influenced by airlines claiming operational difficulty or pilot shortage. The FIP said these claims were inaccurate and that airlines actually have sufficient pilot capacity, pointing to flexible contracts and underutilization of crew.
It argued that pilot fatigue is a serious safety issue affecting alertness and judgement, especially during long-haul and overnight flights, and that allowing weaker rest rules puts passengers and crew at risk and defeats the purpose of the revised safety norms.
The matter was taken up by a bench led by Justice Amit Sharma, which was initially reluctant to issue contempt notices but agreed to hear arguments. The case is now tagged with the IndiGo fallout and is scheduled to be taken up on 15 December.
“We are in the process of filing additional documents and will take this issue forward before the court on the next date of hearing,” said a lawyer involved in the case, requesting anonymity.
Why it’s a decade-long legal fight
The dispute began in 2012, when pilot unions—including the Indian Commercial Pilots Association, Indian Pilots Guild and FIP—moved the Delhi High Court alleging that Indian airlines were pushing crew to unsafe fatigue levels.
They sought modernized FDTL norms aligned with global standards and mandatory operator-specific fatigue-management schemes under DGCA oversight, arguing that only the regulator—and not the aviation ministry—has the legal authority to prescribe maximum flying hours and landings.
The case lingered for years, including a 2018 ruling directing the DGCA to cap flying at 125 hours in 30 days and warning that staff shortages cannot justify overstretching pilots.
On 24 February 2025, the court ordered the DGCA to adhere to rollout timelines and in April, the regulator informed the court that implementation was complete, and the petitions were closed. But the pilots later filed a contempt plea, accusing the DGCA of selective relaxation and dilution—reigniting the confrontation that now sits at the centre of the IndiGo crisis.
What this case could mean for India’s pilot relaxation rules
According to lawyers who spoke to Mint, the contempt plea puts the DGCA in a legally uncomfortable position because pilot associations will argue that the regulator has acted contrary to assurances it formally recorded before the court.
“If the high court finds that the relaxation of duty-time norms undermines the essence of what the DGCA committed to enforce, the regulator risks an adverse finding, directions to restore stricter norms and renewed judicial supervision. Even without punitive contempt, a judicial reprimand and mandatory compliance orders are very much on the table,” said Raheel Patel, a partner at Gandhi Law Associates.
According to Zeeshan Farooqui, a partner at King Stubb & Kasiva, the pilot bodies’ strongest argument will be that the DGCA explicitly assured the court that prescribed rest and duty limits would be strictly enforced but subsequently diluted these safeguards under airline pressure—amounting to non-compliance with both the spirit and the letter of its earlier commitments.
“The unions can argue that the DGCA’s move amounts to wilfully undermining a court-approved safety framework under commercial pressure, using ad-hoc exemptions to neutralise its own undertakings. Contempt can arise not just from breaching an order literally, but also from conduct that defeats its purpose,” noted Shravanth Shanker, an advocate-on-record at the Supreme Court of India.
Alay Razvi, managing partner at Accord Juris, suggested that airlines may file counter-petitions seeking operational flexibility. This would set the stage for multi-party litigation that could escalate all the way to the Supreme Court if regulatory inconsistencies emerge.
What is CAR 2024?
Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) 2024 is India’s updated regulatory framework governing FDTL and rest requirements for pilots and cabin crew. It was notified by the DGCA in February 2024 as part of a comprehensive reform to strengthen flight safety by addressing crew fatigue—the first major overhaul of pilot duty-time norms in more than a decade.
The rules were scheduled for phased implementation on 1 July and 1 November 2025, requiring airlines to update their rostering systems and submit operator-specific fatigue-risk schemes for approval.
The norms introduced stricter fatigue controls: expanding the definition of night duty to midnight to 6 am; limiting crews to a maximum of two night-time landings per duty period; capping the flight duty period during night operations at 10 hours; and mandating a continuous 48-hour weekly rest including two local nights within a 168-hour window.
What was the rollback?
Amid the cancellations, the DGCA granted IndiGo a temporary one-time relaxation from key CAR 2024 FDTL rules for its A320 pilots to stabilise operations. The exemption, valid until 10 February 2026, shortens the night-duty window from midnight-6 am to midnight-5 am and permits up to six night-time landings instead of the two allowed under the new norms.
The DGCA has also withdrawn rules on excluding other leave from the mandatory 48-hour weekly rest period and released 12 flight operations inspectors back to flying duties. The regulator stressed that the relief is temporary and subject to fortnightly review, but the move has angered pilot unions and rival airlines that restructured operations to comply with CAR 2024.
What IndiGo is doing now
Mint reported earlier that IndiGo plans to hire over 900 pilots—an aggressive recruitment push to meet stricter night-flight and crew-rest norms. In its submission to the DGCA, IndiGo said it would cancel 300-400 flights a day from 5 to 8 December to reset its schedule and stabilise operations. A revised roster for 10-31 December would follow.
Aviation experts said the tight notice periods that pilots need to give their employers and high aircraft utilisation at IndiGo will make it challenging for the airline to ramp up crew strength quickly enough to satisfy the new limits.