India's largest airline IndiGo has made a groundbreaking discovery: pilots get tired when they work too much. This revelation came as a complete surprise to the carrier despite having nearly two years to prepare for it.
The airline, which controls 63% of India's domestic market, responded to new pilot fatigue regulations the way most people respond to a dentist appointment—by ignoring it until the last possible moment, then having a complete meltdown.
After canceling over 1,000 flights on Friday alone, IndiGo CEO Peter Elbers promised things would return to "normal" by December 10-15. Translation: "We have absolutely no idea what we're doing, but mid-December sounds professional."
The crisis stems from rules introduced in January 2024, which audaciously suggest that pilots deserve 48 hours of rest per week instead of 36, and should only make two night landings weekly instead of six. These radical concepts, also known as "basic human functioning," proved too complex for IndiGo's management to grasp.
Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu helpfully pointed out that other airlines managed to adjust just fine. "However, what has unfolded is due to mismanagement by IndiGo," he said, in the political equivalent of "Everyone else finished their homework on time."
In response to the chaos, the government granted IndiGo a special exemption from the pilot rest rules until February 2026. Because nothing says "we care about safety" quite like suspending safety regulations when they become inconvenient.
Passengers across India have experienced the full IndiGo experience: cancelled flights with no refunds, customer service numbers that don't work, and ticket prices to other airlines surging to ₹90,000—roughly six times the normal fare.
The government has now ordered a high-level inquiry to determine what went wrong, as if the answer isn't blindingly obvious: IndiGo spent two years hoping the regulations would magically go away instead of hiring more pilots.