A PIL has been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking to direct the Centre and Indigo airline to pay four times the compensation of the full ticket price to all passengers whose tickets were cancelled during November and December after the new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rollout.
The public interest litigation, which will come up for hearing on Wednesday before a bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela, also sought an enquiry by a retired judge or Lokpal to identify the negligence and lapses of the Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in precipitating the crisis.
The petition further sought to direct the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Department of Consumer Affairs to initiate a ”class action suit” according to the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act against Indigo for the suffering and damages caused to the passengers due to the crisis in the last couple of months.
According to the petitioner, Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change (CASC), through its president, Prof Vikram Singh, the Indigo fiasco has triggered widespread concern across the aviation sector and due to sudden disruption and last-minute cancellation of thousands of flights, stranded passengers faced severe inconvenience.
The plea, filed by advocates Virag Gupta, Shourya Tiwari and Rupali Panwar, said airports were overflowing with misdirected pieces of baggage, excessive holdups, inadequate communication from the airlines and confusion regarding refunds or re-booking options. ”Indigo operates around 410 aircraft with 5,700 pilots, translating to roughly 14 pilots per aircraft.
This skeletal staffing model is insufficient as new rest rules require more pilots to operate the same flight schedule. ”When the new FDTL rules reduced pilot availability, the numbers stopped crunching which led to a national aviation crisis. Instead of taking remedial, penal action and giving appropriate compensation as per the existing laws, the matter is being diverted in the name of an enquiry and emphasis on the need for new laws,” it said.
The PIL said that to avoid such a crisis in future, action on six aspects of dominance, refund, compensation, damages, penalty according to loss to the economy and contempt for non-compliance with court orders are needed. It sought to direct the Centre and InterGlobe Aviation, which runs IndiGo airline, to pay four times compensation of the full ticket price to all the passengers whose tickets were cancelled during November and December after FDTL rollout. On Tuesday, crisis-hit IndiGo said it cancelled 110 flights across its network due to disruptions caused by bad weather at Delhi airport.
The Delhi High Court, on December 10, had questioned the central government for not taking timely action to check the crisis caused by IndiGo flight cancellations and asked why the situation was allowed to precipitate, with lakhs of passengers stranded and other airlines charging hefty fares. It was hearing a PIL seeking directions to the Centre to provide support and refunds to passengers affected by the cancellation of hundreds of flights by IndiGo. The airline has been facing heat from both the government and the passengers for cancelling hundreds of flights since December 2, citing regulatory changes in the pilots’ flight duty and regulations norms.
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