IndiGo airlines has been served a penalty of Rs 1.2 crore over violation of norms

Flight cancellation and delays on January 14 have caused a cascading effect on our OTP: Pieter

The fact that security had been compromised was unacceptable: Scindia

IndiGo airlines has been served a penalty of Rs 1.2 crore over violation of norms for allowing ramp-to-ramp transfer, not screening passengers and their baggage and allowing passengers to sit and eat on the Mumbai airport’s apron.  “The fact the passengers were inconvenienced, the fact that they had to eat on the tarmac, the fact that security had been compromised across all points was unacceptable. Within 3-4 hours, notices were issued and within 24 hours of the notices being issued, the necessary penalties were levied,” the Minister of Civil Aviation in India, Jyotiraditya Scidnia said. 

Indigo’s performance was the worst among airlines with regard to On-time performance (OTP) as per information released by the civil aviation ministry with less than half of its plane able to match the standards. “We are going to collectively… not only in Indigo itself, but even within the ecosystem; air traffic control, airports, airports authorities, operators, security personnel, evaluate ways on how we can do better. We have had tough days since the fog arrived in the Northern part of India… we probably had the worst fog in many years. From our 86 destinations, roughly one third is in northern India. Hence, if northern India is under the blanket of fog, then we have a challenge together. We had to collectively deal with the accumulation of flights and its cascading effects. We will review our operations along with the industry to avoid operational disruptions going forward… We updated our navigation system two days ago. Flight cancellation and delays on January 14 have caused a cascading effect on our OTP over the last week,” CEO of IndiGo airlines Pieter Elbers said.