IndiGo announced on Wednesday that it expects its operations to be completely normal by March 31, this year. The airline’s statement comes on a day when it accepted that it had cancelled 49 flights on Wednesday.
In a statement, the airline said all the flights were cancelled with one to two days prior notice in order to re-accommodate passengers on flights at a time close to their original booking. The airline added that the cancellations on Wednesday was caused by several factors, such as weather conditions and notices to airmen at various airports.
“This resulted in extended duty times which then made it necessary to re-roster our crew and optimise our operations,” the airline said in the statement. The statement adds that going forward IndiGo has decided to curtail its schedule for the remaining period of February by approximately 30 flights a day. This is in order to stabilise its operations and adjust its crew rosters. “This measure has already been implemented and passengers informed. These medium term cancellations have been made to minimise the impact on passengers as alternative travel options have been offered well in advance. These 30 flights represent 2 per cent of IndiGo’s flights,” the statement said. Earlier in the day, at the on going Aviation Summit, IndiGo officials said that it will be difficult to find an industry which functions at 100 per cent.
“We run mean and trim operations. But sometime there are issues. We are dealing with them now,” said a senior airline official. The official said it will be wrong to say that IndiGo was facing a shortage of pilots pointing to problems such as weather issues and pilot duty regulations