In a country where aviation has evolved from a luxury to a necessity, the poster boy of Indian aviation has triggered a national crisis that was entirely avoidable.

Over the past three days, InterGlobe Aviation, which owns IndiGo, left thousands of passengers stranded across major airports, with flights from prominent metros being grounded.

But the truth is that this crisis was not an act of God, it was a failure of leadership.

The new crew rostering rules, aimed at giving pilots adequate rest and limit night duties, were announced well in advance, following a ruling by the High Court. Initially scheduled for June 2024, when the rules finally rolled out in phases starting July, IndiGo had been given ample time to prepare.

As of March 2025, IndiGo’s workforce comprised 41,049 employees, including 5,456 pilots and 10,212 cabin crew. IndiGo has nine partnerships with flying training organisations across the world, enabling more pilot training and hired more than 1,000 pilots through the Cadet Pilot Programme. Yet when the second phase hit in November, the airline collapsed under the weight of its own unpreparedness.

Just weeks before the crisis erupted, Elbers, during the post Q2 FY26 earnings call on November 4, painted a picture of operational excellence. He boasted about leading the industry in on-time performance for nine consecutive months, praised the airline's "meticulous planning" and "relentless focus on execution," and announced plans for early teens capacity growth.

Not a single analyst, nor the management felt it was important to ask the obvious question or throw light on how the airline was preparing for the new crew rules coming in days.

Peter Drucker wrote in his 1967 classic, The Effective Executive, that executives "are not paid for doing things they like to do. They are paid for getting the right things done—most of all in their specific task, the making of effective decisions."

By this standard, Elbers has fallen short.

The effective decision would have been to accelerate pilot hiring and training programs months ago, to lobby transparently for realistic implementation timelines, or to proactively reduce capacity rather than promising growth the airline couldn't deliver.

Instead, IndiGo chose to expand aggressively while hoping the problem would somehow resolve itself. The airline was operating over 2,300 daily flights by October, adding new routes and destinations, all the while knowing that stricter crew requirements were imminent.

Stephen Covey's words from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People ring painfully true here: "If you don't choose to do it in leadership time up front, you do it in crisis-management time down the road."

Elbers had leadership time. He had months, if not years, to prepare for regulations that were never a secret. He could have invested in his Cadet Pilot Programme earlier and more aggressively. He could have been honest with investors and customers about the challenges ahead, or he could have scaled back instead of stretching the airline's operations to breaking point.

Had the DGCA chosen not step in with “one time exemption” from the new flight duty time limitations, the crisis would have lasted for months.

The aviation regulator’s order stated that IndiGo, during discussions, acknowledged “that it could not adequately anticipate, crew planning and rostering preparedness were insufficient, resulting in widespread disruption.”

If IndiGo admitted to the regulator that it was ill-prepared, why did the management portray a completely wrong picture during the earnings call?

Yes, the regulatory changes were significant. But IndiGo isn't just any airline as it commands 65% of India's domestic market and flew 118 million passengers in FY25. And as the iconic line goes, “with greater power comes greater responsibility”. For IndiGo, greater dominance meant greater responsibility and accountability.

In a publicly issued statement, the airline acknowledged could not live up to its promise to its customers. But an apology without direct accountability is just words. The real question is: can IndiGo build the operational resilience that its market position demands?

Leadership is about confronting hard truths, not glossing over them. Elbers had that time. He didn't use it wisely. The agony piled on passengers is a direct consequence of leadership failure.

While the DGCA has done a rescue act to contain the damage, the ultimate responsibility for India’s worst-ever aviation disruptions rests with Elbers.