IndiGo Flight Disruptions: Open Letter From Pilots Alleging 'Planning Failure' Behind Chaos Goes Viral

An 'open letter' from IndiGo pilots, cabin crew and ground staff has gone viral on social media amid large-scale flight cancellations resulting in chaos across several airports in the country. So far, more than 500 flights have been cancelled, leaving passengers stranded at various airports.

In the letter, employees claim that the recent chaos "was not just an operational failure, it was a failure of planning and frontline protection." According to them, while airports saw scenes of frustration and confusion, it was the staff at check-in counters, boarding gates and inside aircraft who bore the brunt of passenger anger.

The signatories said that key decisions were taken far from where the impact was most visible. “Across airports, it was employees who faced passenger anger, public blame, and personal abuse, while strategic decisions remained distant from their consequences,” the letter states.

The employees point to the timing and pattern of cancellations, suggesting that they matched the rollout of a new regulatory deadline. They claim the alignment “made it impossible to ignore what is visible to everyone on the ground,” and allege that the “operational collapse was allowed to escalate in a way that exerted pressure on the government for extension/relaxation.”

They stop short of directly accusing the airline of orchestrating the disruptions but say the outcome was indistinguishable from intention. “Whether intentional or tolerated, the outcome was the same: frontline staff became leverage in a regulatory standoff,” the letter reads.

The open letter also highlights that those facing passengers were not responsible for the decisions that led to the crisis. “We did not design rosters. We did not freeze hiring. We did not delay preparedness. Yet we carried the entire public cost,” the employees wrote.

The employees have made four demands: “Public ownership of planning failure,” “clear exoneration of frontline staff,” “transparency on whether regulatory pressure formed part of strategy,” and “assurance this will never be repeated.”

They concluded by reminding the airline’s leadership that “an airline runs on people, not just plans,” adding that “trust, once used as leverage, is hard to rebuild.”

IndiGo’s leadership has publicly acknowledged the crisis. In a note to employees, CEO Pieter Elbers admitted the airline “could not live up” to its commitment to dependable service, attributing the breakdown to a combination of new crew-rostering requirements under the revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL), technical issues, airport congestion and poor weather.

Under the FDTL norms, crew duty hours are tightly capped. No more than eight hours of flying per day, 35 hours a week, 125 hours a month and 1,000 hours a year. The rules also mandate substantial rest periods, requiring every crew member to receive rest amounting to twice their flight-time, with a minimum of 10 hours’ rest within any 24-hour cycle.