NEW DELHI: Govt on Saturday cracked the whip on IndiGo and other airlines charging exorbitant fares amid mass cancellations, capping domestic airfares at Rs 18,000 (UDF, passenger security fees and taxes extra). In a late evening meeting, civil aviation secretary Samir Kumar Sinha gave IndiGo two days — instead of the 21 sought by the airline — to fully restore operations.Sinha summoned the airline brass led by CEO Pieter Elbers to Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan after the ministry invoked the Bharatiya Vayuyan Adhiniyam, arming itself with powers instead of leaving it to aviation regulator DGCA. The carrier, controlling 60% of the domestic traffic, has been ordered to ensure refunds for cancelled tickets by 8pm on Dec 7, and return bags within two days. The airline has been barred from charging any rescheduling fee, which it was levying despite failing for over a month to adhere to new flying time norms for pilots and crew.

Unlike other airlines which were updating DGCA periodically about flight duty time limitations (FDTL), IndiGo not only failed to implement it but even refused to disclose details to the regulator. Officials pointed out that the airline did not update authorities and travellers adequately during the chaos caused by its failure to adhere to FTDL despite being given two years to accept the globally accepted protocol.IndiGo has been instructed to improve its communication: it will now submit a report every fortnight on implementation of its commitment to recruit enough pilots to ensure compliance with resting norms.Separately, officials indicated the probe into IndiGo’s operational collapse may be expedited to find out why such a massive failure took place, and based on that the airline may be penalised. The role of the management is under the scanner as well. The airfare caps stay till IndiGo operations stabilise.Cap on fares comes too late for lakhsFares for short flights covering a distance of up to 500km (like Delhi-Lucknow/Jaipur) have been capped at Rs 7,500; for 500-1,000km (Delhi-Udaipur, Hyderabad-Chennai) at Rs 12,000; 1,000-1,500km (Delhi-Mumbai) at Rs 15,000 and above 1,500km (Delhi-Chennai/Bengaluru/Hyderabad) at Rs 18,000. India had last imposed fare caps during Covid (May 2020 to Aug 2022).Aviation ministry said it has “taken a serious note of unusually high airfares being charged by certain airlines during the ongoing disruption” and “invoked its regulatory powers to ensure fair and reasonable fares across all affected routes” to “protect passengers from any form of opportunistic pricing.”IndiGo is expected to normalise operations by Dec 15 after govt kept certain provisions of the new FDTL norms related to its Airbus A320 fleet in abeyance till Feb 10, 2026.A reduction in flight cancellation may have begun on Saturday when that number dropped to about 700 — from over 1,000 a day earlier. “We are on our way to operate over 1,500 flights by end of day (Saturday). With regards to destinations, over 95% of network connectivity has already been re-established as we are able to operate to 135 out of the existing 138 destinations in operations. We are committed to build back the trust of our customers,” IndiGo said in a statement. IndiGo used to operate over 2,200 flights daily.The fare-capping development may have come way too late for lakhs of passengers who had IndiGo tickets for travel from earlier this week when the airline started cancelling hundreds of flights, till mid-Dec when IndiGo expects to normalise operations. These passengers had to cancel their IndiGo tickets and buy on other airlines like Air India, AI Express, Akasa and SpiceJet at sky-high fares — touching upto Rs 90,000 on certain routes.Geeta Srivastava (name changed on request), for instance, bought tickets for Delhi-Udaipur-Delhi for Rs 11,000. While she travelled Delhi-Udaipur (Dec 5) on some other airline, she was forced to cancel her IndiGo Udaipur-Delhi ticket of Sunday. “I bought Udaipur-Delhi ticket on another airline for Rs 24,000. Of what use is govt directive? Throughout this crisis, aviation ministry has been nothing but a mute spectator,” she fumed.Like Srivastava, lakhs of passengers have had to shell out many times the usual airfare to get to their destinations. The arithmetic is against passengers as IndiGo has almost 65% of the domestic market share. Before the IndiGo crisis, more than five lakh daily domestic flyers were travelling daily this season. Until IndiGo operations are back to normal, almost the vast majority of travellers are chasing seats on airlines that have the remaining 35%. With such a demand-supply mismatch, fares have zoomed.Aviation ministry said in a statement Saturday: “An official directive has been issued to all airlines mandating strict adherence to fare caps that have now been prescribed. These caps will remain in force until the situation fully stabilises. Any deviation from the prescribed norms will attract immediate corrective action in public interest.”