IndiGo issued Rs 163.9 crore in travel vouchers, Aviation Minister tells Rajya Sabha

New Delhi: Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu on Monday informed the Indian Parliament that Rs 163.92 crore in travel voucher compensation has been provided to passengers affected by IndiGo’s massive flight cancellations in early December.Replying to a supplementary query during Question Hour, he said that more than 3.6 lakh customers were affected by the incident and Rs 43.8 crore has been allocated so far as compensation after the ticket verification process. Nader assured that the government is taking a number of necessary measures to ensure that such incidents will not happen again. Hundreds of flights operated by IndiGo were canceled in the first week of December due to pilot shortage after the expiry of the Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) deadline. The government accused the airline of a lack of adequate planning in implementing the second phase of F-FDTL regulations. It granted the airline a one-time exemption from enforcement of the norms. Replying to a specific query on the IndiGo crisis, the minister said the civil aviation ministry was holding daily consultations with airlines before implementing the new norms. “But even after that is done, we will now be more careful so that this doesn’t happen again,” he asserted.Nader said the ministry was working with airlines to ensure more compensation to passengers, adding that as a show of concern, airlines were also issuing coupons or travel vouchers of Rs 10,000. “Rs 163.9 crore has been allocated to passengers for this. If they can verify their travel time at a specific time, they can get more,” Naidu said.Regarding the IndiGo incident, the minister said the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has been in constant contact with the airline. “This is a concrete example where the new F-FDTL regulations have been implemented and the airlines have to look into their internal operations and say how many more pilots we need if F-FDTL is implemented and how we schedule the crew so that there is no impact on operations,” Naidoo said. “IndiGo has employed over 246 pilots during these three months… We have also brought 10 per cent operations to Indigo. Therefore, we have taken several necessary steps so that such an incident does not happen again,” Naidu said.