New Delhi: IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers on Sunday said the airline will be operating around 1,650 flights on Sunday and “step by step, we are getting back”.
In the last few days, hundreds of flights have been cancelled and delayed, causing hardships to thousands of passengers. The country’s largest airline, which generally operates around 2,300 flights daily, on Saturday operated about 1,500 flights compared to little over 700 on Friday.
Elbers, in an internal video message to the staff, said the airline’s On Time Performance (OTP) is expected to be 75 per cent on Sunday.
In an internal video message to staff from the airline’s operational control centre, Elbers said IndiGo’s On Time Performance (OTP) is expected to reach 75 percent today. “Today, we have realised further improvements of the system in order to reach around 1,650 flights,” he said, adding that “step by step, we are getting back”.
Elbers also noted that cancellations were being executed earlier in the day to prevent passengers from turning up at airports unaware of flight disruptions. According to the airline, 137 of its 138 destinations are operational on December 7.
Facing criticism for the board’s silence during the meltdown, IndiGo today issued a defence, saying its directors have been actively involved since the first day of mass cancellations. The airline said the board met immediately after the disruptions began and later convened a board-only session, where members agreed to form a Crisis Management Group (CMG) to oversee the recovery.
The CMG includes Chairman Vikram Singh Mehta; Board Directors Gregg Saretsky, Mike Whitaker and Amitabh Kant; and CEO Pieter Elbers.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has meanwhile pressed the four-member High Level Committee probing the collapse to fast-track its inquiry, after finding IndiGo’s responses “not satisfactory” so far, sources told India Today. The panel, initially given 15 days to submit its report, has now been asked to expedite its findings and “zero down” the root cause of the fiasco and those responsible, as flight disruptions continue to affect passengers nationwide.
