IndiGo: Indian aviation’s too-big-to-fail problem?

India has just witnessed how a sector dominated by a giant player can suddenly go into a tailspin. The whole aviation ecosystem was thrown into unprecedented turmoil on Friday when IndiGo, the country’s dominant airline, abruptly cancelled more than 1,000 flights in a single day. The crisis began quietly on Tuesday, when the airline started cancelling flights at an unusual rate, but by the end of the week it had escalated into one of the worst disruptions Indian aviation has ever witnessed. What initially appeared to be a scheduling glitch quickly revealed itself as a deeper structural fault. It was a sudden, acute shortage of cockpit crew following the introduction of new duty-time regulations for pilots.