



A penalty and a warning later, haze persists over IndiGo pilot hirings
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI/MUMBAI : The Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) decision to impose a financial penalty and issue a warning to IndiGo chief executive officer (CEO) Pieter Elbers and chief operating officer (COO) Isidre Porqueras over the weekend has ended more than a month-long regulatory row with the country’s largest airline that was triggered by widespread flight cancellations early December. While the move lifts the immediate regulatory overhang, questions remain over whether IndiGo can realistically induct enough pilots to meet India’s staffing and flight duty norms, according to four consultants and pilots.
In the first week of December, IndiGo had promised the aviation regulator that it would induct 158 pilots by 10 February. On 10 December, the regulator had asked the airline to curtail its winter schedule, or the proposed domestic flights, by at least 10%. “You cannot add so many pilots in three months.
It is practically impossible. Even if pilots are recruited, training and DGCA approvals take at least 60 days. Even expat pilots require long security clearances," said Amit Singh, a former pilot and CEO of Safety Matters Foundation, a Gurugram-based aviation safety education platform.
Sector experts have doubts over the hiring prospects and flagged the haze around it. “We still do not know if IndiGo will be hiring additional pilots to avoid a similar operational meltdown in the future. And if so, there is no clear roadmap for such hiring that has been made public.
People are still in the dark," said Mark D. Martin, founder and CEO at Martin Consulting, an aviation safety advisory firm. Documents submitted by IndiGo to the DGCA and reviewed by Mint show that the total crew
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