The ₹22.2-crore penalty imposed by the DGCA on IndiGo for massive flight disruptions in December has generated a mixed response, with some terming it appropriate while others finding the amount incommensurate with the chaos caused by the airline.
Captain C.S. Randhawa, president of the Federation of Indian Pilots, demanded that the government review its decision as the IndiGo fiasco had caused a national air travel crisis. He also questioned why senior IndiGo officials were let off the hook with a mere warning, citing the magnitude of the error that snowballed into an aviation crisis.
“There was a national crisis. And it was deliberate because the pilots were available, the cabin crew was available, the aircraft were available, but the flight never went.
So, they caused a national
crisis,” Randhawa told this paper, flagging that almost 6-7 lakh people were affected
and harassed.
“Considering this, the fine is very, very small,” he said.
He said Southwest Airlines in the US faced a similar crisis three years ago and was fined $140 million, which was distributed among the affected passengers.
“So, what is ₹22 crore? It is a ridiculous amount,” he said.
In December 2023, the US department of transportation had slapped a $140-million penalty on Southwest Airlines for violating consumer protection laws during and after an operational failure that resulted in 16,900 flight cancellations, stranding over two million passengers over the 2022 Christmas holidays and the New Year.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said the penalty imposed on IndiGo was too little compared with the “massive chaos” that caused “global embarrassment” and left lakhs of passengers stranded in multiple airports across the country.
“The massive chaos unleashed by Indigo Airlines, the global embarrassment that India faced, the flouting of mandated regulation by the airline, the surge fares the passengers ended up paying, the thousands of passengers stranded, the emotional, mental and health toll of Indians all resolved by DGCA with a ‘PRINCELY SUM’ of 22 crores as fine,” Chaturvedi, a Rajya Sabha member, posted on X.
“Even IndiGo board must be laughing with relief. While Indians can move on with the harrowing memories in the true spirit of ‘we are born to live with these issues & not expect government to stand by us’,” she added.
However, several experts said there was a lawful limit to imposing penalties, and the aviation regulator had to stick to that.
“The ministry of civil aviation and DGCA have done the best that they could have given their limitation on fines,” aviation expert Shakti Lumba posted on X.
The Indian aviation law, Bharatiya Vayuyan Vidheyak 2024, empowers the DGCA to slap a fine of up to ₹1 crore on airlines for specific safety violations, non-compliance, operational issues and endangering public safety. Section 32 of the law deals with the adjudication of penalties.
The ₹22.2-crore penalty on IndiGo was arrived at by adding a daily fine of ₹30 lakh and multiplying it by 68 days for continuous non-compliance with new crew rostering norms. The amount also includes a one-time systemic penalty of ₹1.80 crore for violation of civil aviation requirements (CAR) norms.
But, Randhawa said “it is a unique case and the government must set an example”.
“The penalty was peanuts. A strong message should be given that if anyone does anything like this in future, they should be punished,” he said.
“Minister @RamMNK listen to your voters. Do not betray their faith in you. You should not be compromised. @PMOIndia @AmitShah @narendramodi, the sheer scale of the massive disruption and defiance of law deserves punitive penalty not this Joke of Rs 22 cr!” former Infosys chief financial officer T.V. Mohandas Pai posted on X.
Reacting to the DGCA’s crackdown, aviation expert Amit Singh said many inconsistencies remained unexplained as IndiGo, during the initial days of the crisis, had cited pilot shortage among other operational problems.
“In the initial days of the December 2025 disruption, the airline publicly cited pilot shortage/crew unavailability. Subsequently, it submitted a pilot recruitment and induction schedule to DGCA,” Singh posted on X.
He mentioned that the DGCA findings did not mention anything about pilot shortage, and no individual was held accountable for the manpower planning failure.
“The report penalises scheduling failure but leaves manpower accountability unaddressed. That inconsistency remains unexplained,” Singh added.