(MENAFN- Live Mint) Amid the ongoing IndiGo crisis, the government issued directions to all airlines on Saturday, November 6, to strictly adhere to fare caps“until the situation fully stabilises."

In a press note on Saturday, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said it has taken serious note of concerns regarding unusually high airfares being charged by certain airlines during the ongoing disruption.

"In order to protect passengers from any form of opportunistic pricing, the Ministry has invoked its regulatory powers to ensure fair and reasonable fares across all affected routes," the statement read.

The ministry further informed that an official directive has been issued to all airlines mandating strict adherence to the fare caps that have now been prescribed.

"These caps will remain in force until the situation fully stabilises," it said. Specific details about the airfare caps could not be immediately ascertained.

The ministry added that the objective of this directive is to maintain pricing discipline in the market, prevent any exploitation of passengers in distress, and ensure that citizens who urgently need to travel - including senior citizens, students, and patients - are not subjected to financial hardship during this period.

The IndiGo fiasco

Air travel across India has been in turmoil this week after IndiGo cancelled thousands of flights, prompting the government to announce special relief for the carrier and the operation of additional trains to help clear the backlog.

For five days in a row, IndiGo, the country's largest airline, cancelled hundreds of flights, primarily due to crew woes. With a lesser number of flights, airfares on certain routes surged subsequently.

On Friday, when IndiGo cancelled over 1,000 flights from across airports, its CEO Pieter Elbers apologised in a video message for the major inconvenience caused to passengers due to the disruptions.

In the one-way video communication, Elbers also said that the airline was expecting fewer than 1,000 flights on Saturday.

Flight disruptions were also reported at several airports across the country on Saturday.

Huge increase in airfare

Airfares reached levels never seen before on Friday, with a one-way one-stop economy-class SpiceJet Kolkata-Mumbai flight ticket for December 6 costing up to ₹90,000, and a similar ticket of Air India for Mumbai-Bhubaneswar going up to ₹84,485, according to the airlines' websites, reported PTI.

"The last-minute fares are generally two-three times of the normal average fares. But in this situation, we have seen them surging even six times," a source was quoted by PTI as saying.

"If a ₹10,000 ticket is being sold at ₹60,000, at any place, I would call it black marketing, profiteering. So there is a dire need to look at it," Nomad Travel CEO and Travel Agents' Association of India former president, Ajay Prakash, was quoted as saying.

DGCA's temporary relief to IndiGo

Following the chaos, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Friday provided temporary relief to IndiGo by rolling back the night duty definition to 12 am-5 am from 12 am-6 am earlier, and allowing its pilots to do six night landings from two earlier, besides other relaxations.

After the meeting convened by the Ministry of Civil Aviation with ALPA India and other pilot associations on Friday, the ministry announced that it had decided to place the implementation of the revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) in abeyance.

Notably, IndiGo was the first carrier to oppose the new FDTL norms for pilots when they were introduced in January 2024, with a March implementation timeline.

While the first phase of these FDTL norms came into force in July, the second phase, which reduced the number of night landings from six to two earlier, was implemented from November 1.

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