Hours before the Directorate General of Civil Aviation withdrew its revised instructions on weekly rest for pilots, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi launched a fresh attack on the Modi government’s “monopoly model”.
The Congress MP wrote on X: “IndiGo fiasco is the cost of this govt’s monopoly model. Once again, it’s ordinary Indians who pay the price — in delays, cancellations and helplessness. India deserves fair competition in every sector, not match-fixing monopolies.”
IndiGo and Air India control most of India’s aviation sector.
According to the DGCA’s Handbook on Civil Aviation Statistics 2024-25, the domestic passenger market share of IndiGo was 63 per cent, and that of the Air India brands collectively, 27.9 per cent. The shares of international passenger traffic of scheduled operators were 19.3 per cent for IndiGo and 24 per cent for the Air India brands.
The report cited separate statistics for all entities which have merged into or are owned by Air India Limited, including Air India, Air India Express, AIX Connect and Vistara.
On Friday, Rahul also shared an article he authored a year ago in which he compared the NDA government’s economic policies to those of the East India Company. He had listed IndiGo among those that had “chosen to play by
the rules”.
In an article titled “A new deal for Indian business” in The Indian Express in November last year, the Congress leader called for a fair-play regime for Indian entrepreneurs.
He wrote: “The (East India) Company choked India by partnering with, bribing, and threatening our more pliant maharajas and nawabs. It controlled our banking, bureaucratic, and information networks…. A new breed of monopolists has taken its place. They have amassed colossal wealth, even as India has become far more unequal and unfair for everybody else. Our institutions no longer belong to our people, they do the bidding of monopolists.
“In contrast to the ‘match-fixing’ monopoly groups, there is a larger number of amazing ‘play-fair’ Indian businesses, from micro-enterprises to large corporations, but you are silent…. It seems that companies like… IndiGo… are a tiny sample of homegrown companies that have innovated and chosen to play by the rules.”
