Aviation safety regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), on Saturday imposed a penalty of ₹22.2 crore on IndiGo airline for faulty pilot rostering that led to mass flight disruptions in December, 2025.
IndiGo has also been ordered to pledge a bank guarantee of ₹50 crore to ensure compliance with the directives and long-term systemic correction.
The body issued a warning to the airline’s CEO, Pieter Elbers, and COO, Isidre Porqueras, after serving them a showcase notice, and ordered the removal of Senior Vice President, Operational Control Centre, Jason Herter, from his current position. Herter has been found guilty of failing to plan and implement revised duty and rest norms for pilots that had come into force from November 1, 2025.
Additionally, warnings have been issued to Deputy Head – Flight Operations, AVP – Crew Resource Planning, and Director – Flight Operations, for lapses in operational, supervisory, manpower planning and roster management.
In a press statement, the DGCA said that its four-member inquiry committee had found that there was “an overriding focus on maximising utilisation of crew, aircraft, and network resources, which significantly reduced roster buffer margins. Crew rosters were designed to maximise duty periods, with an increased reliance on dead-heading, tail swaps, extended duty patterns, and minimal recovery margins. This approach compromised roster integrity and adversely impacted operational resilience.”
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The inquiry committee also found deficiencies in system software support and shortcomings in management structure as well as operational control at IndiGo.
On the instructions of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the DGCA will undertake an internal inquiry to identify and implement systemic improvement after questions arose on allowing IndiGo to increase its flights in the winter schedule by 10 per cent without ascertaining its ability to comply with the new pilot rest and duty norms, especially after it was found that IndiGo had 65 fewer captains than needed to comply with the new norms.
DGCA said it will release the ₹50 crore bank guarantee amount only upon being convinced of IndiGo’s implementation across key areas such as leadership and governance, manpower planning, rostering and fatigue risk management, digital systems, and operational resilience.
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