Daybreak - How Indigo ran out of pilots—gradually, then suddenly

Episode Date: January 4, 2026

India's largest airline crisis made headlines for weeks. Last month, Indigo  cancelled nearly 4,000 flights over 10 days, forcing the government to cut 10% of its schedules until March. The culprit? A severe pilot shortage that the airline had two years to prepare for.While Air India doubled its pilot strength ahead of new flight duty rules, Indigo ended up with fewer pilots than before. The airline's response has been less than encouraging. Cut leaves, slash night allowances, and even telling unhappy pilots "where else will you go?"With India needing 30,000 new pilots over the next 15 years, IndiGo's treatment of its crew is coming back to haunt it. And the monopoly mindset that fueled its growth may now be its biggest liability.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing and extensive post-production.

Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get alert, as soon as we release our first studio. episode, please follow intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcast or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. On December 3rd, an Indigo pilot and his colleagues were called into a meeting they weren't officially invited to. There was no email, just messages from fleet managers, asking them to gather at Guru Graham's Fortune Select Global Hotel at 1pm.

But even without an agenda, the pilots knew what this meeting was about. Because a month before that, Indigo had done something no one had expected. For the first time in eight years, the airline emailed its 5,000 pilots, asking them to surrender their leave and fly more hours. This was entirely out of the blue, especially for an airline that had reportedly only always maintained that it didn't want their employees' leaves. But since the second week of November, the airline had been struggling. Now, we've covered the Indigo meltdown on daybreak before.

About a month ago, when the crisis was at its peak, my co-host Nika had explained how the new flight duty time rules, which had kicked in that time, had impacted the brutal efficiency that Indigo was known for. But in this informal meeting, management didn't seem to be too worried. My colleague at the Ken, Noha, spoke to a few pilots who were at this meeting. They told her that the company's repeated stance was basically this. That they are quite well-equipped with pilots and, in fact, were in excess by 30%. Indigo even held a similar meeting in Bangalore around the same time.

But considering the chaos had erupted last month, we know by now that Indigo is India's largest airline. It flies more than 2,000 flights every day and carries six. 65% of domestic passengers, which meant that the disruption hit almost every city. In the 10 days between 2nd and 12th December, the airline had cancelled more than 4,000 flights leaving hundreds of people stranded. Sumit Sushilin, a member of the Civil Aviation Ministry and chairman of an air charter company, minced no words and called it pure mismanagement, which he blames on the overconfidence that comes with two decades of flawless operation.

Of course, the public outcry forced the government to act. It cut 10% of Indigo's scheduled flights until March. Ram Mohan Nairu, the aviation minister, called it a necessary measure that would help restore stability. And even though the situation has stabilized, the crisis revealed something. These new flight duty rules weren't exactly new. Airlines had nearly two years to prepare for it. And while Air India nearly doubled its pilot strength, Indigo actually actually ended up with fewer pilots than before.

And clearly, the pressure had been building inside for a while. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Rachel Rookies, and every day of the week, my co-host, Nikasharman and I will bring you one new story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Monday, the 5th of January. In that November 3rd email, the one in which Indigo had asked pilots to surrender their leaves, it had actually also promised compensation for extra flying hours. But there was one catch.

The pilots couldn't exceed more than 100 hours a month because that would trigger alarms at the aviation regulator. A Delhi-based pilot told Noha that there were a lot of open pilot vacancies. In fact, several flights had no pilots assigned. This number just kept increasing. And by mid-November, delays had also become a factor. A week later, those delays were about four to five hours long. Now, the new rules come from the DCGA or the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

They rolled it out in two phases, in July and in November. Indian pilots now face a 100-hour monthly cap on flying hours. Daily duty hours are also limited and mandated weekly rest was increased from 36 hours to 48 so that pilots could avoid fatigue. Even night operations got tighter restrictions. flying time was capped at 8 hours. Night landings were limited to 2 per week down from the previous 6. Also, pilots couldn't be scheduled for more than two consecutive night duties per week.

All of this meant airlines couldn't use pilots as frequently as before. One of the pilots claims that the crisis didn't happen overnight. Everything happened quite systematically. Between 2024 and 2025, Air India must. more than doubled its pilots to 6,000. Indigo, on the other hand, barely added 400 pilots during the same period. This brought their total to more than 5,450. But in the nine months since then, though, that number dropped back to just over 5,000. For domestic routes, airlines typically need eight sets of pilots per aircraft. Each set has two pilots. For international flights, it's about

11 sets per plane. The pilot we quoted earlier told the ken that Indigo's belief that the crisis would not blow up as much as it did actually caused pilots to stop stepping in and helping. Indigo retaliated by actually cutting their leaves. Basically, if senior pilots had 42 days of leave, they would see it drop to 30. Another pilot told us that the airline simply wouldn't be able to run without doing this. The airline even stopped paying night allowance. Before, an hour of night flying meant payment for about an hour and a half.

A pilot mentioned that the problem has now reached a point where although they are flying crazy hours, pilots are not getting any money. That means, they're kind of losing from both ends. What's worse is that at least five pilots told us that those who did dare to speak up against management practices were asked to resign or were terminated. This reflects Indigo's culture shift since the pandemic. The company's revenue actually dipped by almost 60% in FY21. A former pilot said that these losses basically reveal the company's true face. More on this in the next segment. Occasionally, Indigo holds something it calls base parties.

These are parties where senior leadership would basically visit different cities where pilots were stationed. A former pilot called it a gala time. Everyone would drink, have a good time and after the drink. there'd be a Q&A session between management and pilots. Recently, though, many pilots haven't been showing up for these parties. It's a sign that they're no longer on the same page as management. At a party that took place not too long ago, a few pilots who attended actually asked for a pay bump

because they hadn't gotten one since COVID. The former pilot claimed that the chief operating officer asked them where else they'd go. The thing is, there are only two major Airbus players in the market, Air India and Indigo. Most of Indigo's fleet is the Airbus 320 family. If a pilot wants to fly a different aircraft, they'd need to get a type rating certification. That's basically a certificate that's necessary for aircraft types that need more training than usual. And to get this certificate, it takes about 6 to 10 weeks in India.

Moving to an international carrier is also time-consuming. So basically this has created a monopoly mindset, and that also explains by the airline cut pilot salaries post-COVID. The Delhi pilot claimed that the cuts were actually as high as 50 to 80%. When Indigo posted huge profits again though, salaries weren't restored, though the pilots did get a 6% hike. Now, typically, pilots earn 1.5 to 10 lakh rupees per month, depending on rank and experience. but that payment only covers flying hours, which is the time that they're airborne, not their actual duty hours.

Let me give you an example. Say a pilot flies from Delhi to Mumbai then takes a different route on the way back. That adds about three hours of halt before they return to Delhi. A pilot told us that that's effectively only four hours of flying time. But the total duty period extends beyond those four hours of flight. It includes an hour and a flight. at the airport before departure, 45 minutes of transport, three hours of halt and 45 minutes

post-duty. Now, another thing with Indigo is that it doesn't like hiring pilots from outside either. A pilot claimed that they have a reason for hiring freshers, because it was easier to train these pilots the way the airline wants them in terms of both flying skills and behavior. Another pilot who worked at three different airlines, Ashley told Noha that Indigo's often seemed like a controlled environment. Apparently, people function there like robots. They do what they're told and it's almost like no one has their own thoughts. Stay tuned.

The December 2025 crisis brought intense scrutiny to Indigo, which prompted the regulator and government into taking action. And of course, they had to make sure that their moves were being seen. On December 12th, the DCGA suspended four flight operations inspector overseeing Indigo. This came a day after they stationed officials at the carrier's headquarters to monitor operations from inside the organization. Indigo submitted a revised winter flight roster after the government cut its schedules by 10%. But the issue is still unresolved. India faces a significant pilot shortage. Rapid fleet expansion, with over 1,700 new aircraft orders, is outpacing the

small existing pilot pool. In fact, The country needs nearly 30,000 new pilots in the next 15 years. For now, though, the government has given Indigo until February 10th to comply with the new rules. Sumit Sushilin, the member of the Civil Aviation Ministry we mentioned earlier, said that with a 10% reduction, Indigo will now have 10% extra pilots to utilize. He also thinks that during this period, Indigo can also get trained type-rated pilots. Still, high training costs aren't any help to the company either. Indico charges pilots $1.5 crore rupees to train through its flight school.

That's twice what pilots pay elsewhere. Also, pilots are bound by a seven-year bond. Breaking it means they'd have to pay an additional $1,000 in compensation to the company. All of this stems from the airline's attitude towards its own people. The pilot told us that when a pilot races issue, issues or ask for a raise, Indigo's classic responses, go ahead and leave. Even at the Delhi meeting, which lasted over three hours with some 50 pilots in attendance, Indigo was very clever about fielding questions on pay and flight duty time. A pilot mentioned that when they asked

for hikes, HR would respond by saying that they already get a 10% hike every year. But that's a claim that half a dozen pilots have denied in conversations with the ken. Back at the Fortune Global Hotel and Gurugram, the pilot walked away the same way he walked in. His mind was preoccupied with the crisis and the realization that Indigo's pilot shortage was here to stay. And the only way out for the airline is to start treating the disease, not the symptom. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings, A full subscription offers daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and a whole bunch of premium podcasts.

To subscribe, head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by my colleague Rachel Vargis and edited by Rajiv Sien.