Editorial: Mismanaging aviation monopoly
By Malini Shankar
The aviation fiasco that led to the near
collapse of a leading
and successful private sector airline in India is being blamed on
the federal Ministry of Aviation’s FDTL instructions. Halting operations of an
entire fleet because the airline had not heeded to directives of limiting pilots’
fatigue bespeaks of a lot of rough edges inside the corrosive industry itself. The
directive sought to protect the interests of overworked pilots and welfare of
the passenger whose safety would be compromised if overworked fatigued pilots
were being asked to overwork that too in unfair pay scales.
The Ministry had given the directive with an 18
months window to implement changes…. Meaning, more pilots ought to have been
recruited by 1.11.25. Why didn’t Indigo recruit more pilots in this period? Why
did the DGCA not hold Indigo accountable by October 2025 itself? This is the
one largest question that begs an open, scrutinisable answer. The largest, most
profitable airline, sure, is accountable to the customer / passenger.
While passengers are sore with the airline for
inaction and for expensive blunders, the Press in India is holding the Government
of India to account for a likely business failure. The grey buffer here is… by
having to conform to a directive of the Government, the leader in Indian aviation
not just lost its face but led to a near collapse of the airline’s profit
oriented business model. By the time all the refunds are in place Indigo would
have had a clean shave on its account books. Profit orientation to the point of
endangering the safety of the passengers. This is precisely what the Government
sought to stymie.
Other issues remain unclear. Why did the Aviation
regulator – Directorate of Civil Aviation permit Indigo to operate in sectors
where other airlines were not operating? This is precisely the reason that
Indigo enjoyed monopoly in sectors where no other airline was operating. What
about transparency of the roaster system? Does DGCA have access to the roaster
system softwares of the airlines? Can passengers too have access to these
roaster databases as a new directive please?
Why didn’t other airlines operate in such
areas? Primarily Air India: being the flag carrier it had an obligation to
operate in non-profitable sectors too, on every tarmac in every airport in
India, the flag carrier ought to operate. However, Indigo a private and
relatively young airline was not just having monopoly in many sectors but was
making unscrupulous profits in monopolistic routes and sectors. Was DGCA then
hand in glove with the private sector leader in aviation? Why was profit motive
overriding safety considerations of fatigued pilots?
Time was when Air India had flights operating
in every single airport in India and every 60 seconds an Air India aircraft was
either taking off or landing in some airport in India. Yet the flag carrying airline
was and is still operating at a huge loss, despite privatisation. The Press is
coming down heavily against Ministry of Civil Aviation for rusting the profit
oriented business model of Indigo.
Except Indigo no other airline faced such a
shortage of pilots. Why? Answer is Indigo Airlines enjoyed a near monopoly….
Operating in sectors where no other airline operated. That points to lack of
competition… implying regulators / Ministry officials were bribed to overlook.
Blaming the counter staff or the Airlines or
the Government’s Ministry of Civil Aviation or the regulator Directorate of
Civil Aviation only brought out the frustration of the jinxed passengers.
When Liberalisation made way for competition in
1991 many an airline was born but market forces refined the competition and
only the best survived to tell the story. But monopolistic trade practices of a
profit oriented private sector player in the aviation industry is unhealthy to
say the least. The Government must facilitate healthy competition not augment
unhealthy monopoly. Skeptics say this crisis is the beginning of the end of
liberalisation. That this unsuccessful
model will replicate in other areas of industry and commerce: infrastructure,
logistics, textiles, software industry, telecom industry, e-commerce and so on.
That should ring alarm bells both in chambers of commerce and industry and in
the federal ministries administering India. Ideology maybe one fundamental
element to winning elections, but idealism needs to converge with discourse to streamline
administration and governance.
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