The aviation regulator DGCA on Saturday issued a show cause notice to IndiGo chief executive Pieter Elbers, holding him directly accountable for “significant lapses in planning, oversight, and resource management” and giving him 24 hours to explain why enforcement action should not be initiated for violations that precipitated the country’s worst aviation crisis in years.

DGCA issues show cause notice to IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers (REUTERS)

The civil aviation ministry separately imposed emergency fare caps on domestic flights and ordered IndiGo to complete all refunds by Sunday evening, as tens of thousands of stranded passengers across Indian airports confronted surging ticket prices, missing luggage and mounting anger in the fifth day of the operational meltdown.

Fllow IndiGo flight cancellations live updates

The show cause notice from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, issued Saturday evening, cited IndiGo for “prima facie non-compliance” with Aircraft Rules and Civil Aviation Requirements, accusing the airline of failing to provision adequate arrangements to implement revised crew fatigue rules and failing to provide requisite facilities to passengers during massive flight disruptions.

“…Such large-scale operational failures indicate significant lapses in planning, oversight, and resource management, and is prima facie non-compliance on the part of the airline,” the notice, addressed to the CEO, stated. “As CEO, you are responsible for effective management of the airline but you have failed in your duty to ensure timely arrangements for conduct of reliable operations and the availability of requisite facilities to the passengers”.

The notice gives Elbers until Sunday evening to respond, warning that “failure to submit your reply within the stipulated period shall result in the matter being decided ex parte”—meaning DGCA will proceed with enforcement action without his response.

Earlier, the ministry capped airfares at ₹7,500 for routes up to 500km, ₹12,000 for 500-1,000km, ₹15,000 for 1,000-1,500km, and ₹18,000 for routes above 1,500km, excluding airport fees and taxes—the first time such caps have been imposed since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020—after what it termed an “unreasonable surge” in ticket prices that saw fares spike up to ten times normal rates.

“The ministry of civil aviation has taken serious note of concerns regarding unusually high airfares being charged by certain airlines during the ongoing disruption. In order to protect passengers from any form of opportunistic pricing, the ministry has invoked its regulatory powers to ensure fair and reasonable fares across all affected routes,” the ministry said in a statement.

The intervention came as IndiGo, in its first explicit admission of the crisis’s scale, revealed it had operated “little above 700 flights” on Friday—meaning the airline cancelled approximately 1,500 flights, or nearly 70% of its daily operations, the highest single-day toll since the meltdown began Tuesday.

The airline said Saturday operations improved to “over 1,500 flights by end of day”, suggesting approximately 700 cancellations, still representing roughly one-third of normal daily operations. The carrier has now cancelled approximately 3,600 flights since Tuesday, leaving passengers stranded at airports, scrambling for alternative transport, and in many cases unable to locate checked baggage for days.

IndiGo described Friday’s mass groundings as a deliberate “reboot” strategy. “The main objective was to reboot the network, systems, and rosters so that we could start afresh today with higher number of flights, improved stability, and there are some early signs of improvement,” an airline spokesperson said.

The airline said it had restored connectivity to 135 of its 138 operational destinations, or over 95% of its network. “While we understand that we have a long way to go, we are committed to build back the trust of our customers,” the spokesperson said, thanking government agencies and apologising to customers and staff “for their patience and cooperation through these tough times”.

The ministry’s intervention followed widespread reports of airfares surging five to ten times normal rates after IndiGo’s mass cancellations obliterated capacity across the sector. Round-trip tickets on major routes had crossed ₹80,000- ₹90,000, with Delhi-Mumbai return fares reaching ₹93,000 compared to typical rates of ₹20,000- ₹25,000.

On Friday, HT scanned multiple booking websites and found minimum return airfares from Delhi did not fall below ₹38,000 for Mumbai, ₹27,000 for Bengaluru, ₹34,000 for Kolkata and ₹30,000 for Pune on Friday.

Saturday’s government interventions came a day after DGCA granted IndiGo sweeping exemptions from crew fatigue rules—relief meant to give the airline breathing room until February 10—in a move that did nothing to alleviate the immediate chaos of fare gouging, mounting cancellations and stranded passengers.

The regulator on Friday exempted IndiGo from provisions limiting pilot duty hours at night and withdrew a rule prohibiting substitution of other leave for mandatory weekly rest, after the airline admitted to “misjudgment and planning gaps” in adapting to Flight Duty Time Limitations that came into force on November 1.

The Airline Pilots Association of India expressed “profound concern” over the exemptions, warning they “gravely compromised the safety of the flying public”. The regulator responded by appealing to pilot associations “to extend full cooperation at the moment in view of the large scale demand due to winter holidays and marriage season”.

IndiGo shares have plummeted 7.3% over the four trading days since the crisis began, eroding market capitalisation by ₹16,190 crore to ₹2,07,649 crore. The airline, which commands 60% of India’s domestic market, operates more than 2,000 flights daily with a fleet exceeding 400 aircraft, almost entirely Airbus A320-family jets.

The crisis has underscored the fragility of IndiGo’s business model, predicated on relentless cost optimisation with minimal operational buffers, and exposed how the airline’s near-exclusive reliance on Airbus A320-family aircraft—a strategy delivering cost savings through standardised training and maintenance—meant it lacked alternative aircraft types to deploy when operational stress mounted, unlike rivals such as Air India which operate diverse fleets.