IndiGo chief’s folded-hands photo was an apology to the nation, says aviation minister

IndiGo chief’s folded-hands photo was an apology to the nation, says aviation minister

Union Aviation Minister K Ram Mohan Naidu has clarified the story behind the widely circulated photograph of IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers standing with folded hands during a meeting with the government, saying the gesture was not directed at him alone but at the country.

Responding to questions about the viral image, Naidu told India Today TV, "He folded his hands, he was apologising not only to me but to the people of the country who faced difficulty."

The minister’s comments come after nearly two weeks in which passengers across India experienced significant chaos at airports with hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled, queues stretched for hours and crew shortages crippled operations.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation finally summoned Elbers on Tuesday to assess the crisis and demand corrective measures in the functionality of the airline.

During the meeting, the government ordered IndiGo to scale back its flight schedules temporarily and also asked the flight operator to cut down operations by 10%, which, the government said, would help in stabilising the system and help the airline to return to normalcy.

IndiGo, after the meeting, said that it would be going by the government directive and would implement the required reduction while maintaining its service to all its destinations.

Naidu, speaking later at Agenda AajTak, blamed IndiGo for the chais and said that the disruptions were rooted in poor planning and flawed internal processes. According to him, the crisis was avoidable.

Elbers, in a separate interview with India Today TV earlier this week, acknowledged that the situation had caught even him off guard and should not have escalated the way it did.

Naidu echoed that assessment, asserting, "The crisis was a result of gross mismanagement by IndiGo only. There was some anomaly with their internal crew rostering system, which could have been avoided in compliance with the new norms under the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) guidelines, which unfortunately did not happen," he said.

He added that this lapse triggered a chain reaction that paralysed operations nationwide, saying, "This is the reason why we saw the domino effect of flight cancellations on December 3 and 4."