More than 10.4 lakh passengers were affected by flight cancellations in December, with over 93 percent of the total passengers getting impacted by IndiGo cancellations
New Delhi: India’s competition regulator, Competition Commission of India(CCI), has ordered an investigation into IndiGo after the airline’s widespread flight cancellations in December rattled the country’s air travel sector, an order published on the regulator’s website showed on Wednesday.
The order, published by the antitrust watchdog on Wednesday, followed complaints alleging antitrust violations by the budget airline.
The regulator said that one of the complaints accused IndiGo of cancelling hundreds of flights that caused heavy surge in prices as well as huge inconvenience to passengers.
Indigo cancelled about 4,500 flights in the first weeks of December, stranding tens of thousands of passengers nationwide and highlighting concerns over limited competition in the world’s fastest-growing aviation market.
A probe by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) found several deficiencies at the airline after stricter pilot rest and duty rules came into effect last year.
More than 10.4 lakh passengers were affected by flight cancellations in December, with over 93 percent of the total passengers getting impacted by IndiGo cancellations.
Latest data shared by aviation regulator DGCA also showed that scheduled domestic airlines shelled out over Rs 24.27 crore towards compensation and facilities for flight cancellations that affected more than 10.46 lakh passengers in December.
Out of them, flight cancellations by IndiGo impacted 9.82 lakh passengers in December and the airline spent Rs 22.74 crore towards facilitation.
The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines was 6.92 percent in December, and that of IndiGo was 9.65 percent.
IndiGo, the country’s largest airline, faced massive flight disruptions in early December and during that month, its market share fell to 59.6 percent from 63.6 percent in November.
During December, a total of 29,212 passenger-related complaints had been received by the scheduled domestic airlines and the number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried was at around 20.41, as per the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
According to the DGCA data, flight delays impacted 8.34 lakh passengers and airlines spent Rs 4.50 crore towards facilitation in December.
In January, India’s aviation regulator fined the country’s largest airline a record $2.45 million, issued warnings to senior executives and directed the airline to remove the head of its operations control from his duties.
Agencies