IndiGo crisis: Amid the crisis that halted India’s flight operations for nearly a week, IndiGo lifted its pilot recruitment freeze and issued recruitment calls for its A320 family. This comes after thousands of IndiGo flight cancellations persisted for days due to the government’s new rules on pilot rest periods, which have now been lifted.
In a notice issued on its website over Friday and Saturday, IndiGo called for captains and senior first officers (type-rated) as it lifted a hiring freeze that began months ago after IndiGo’s flight cancellation issue persisted.
IndiGo cancellation: Airline starts hiring pilots
In an announcement on Friday, IndiGo has issued a call for the recruitment of captains and senior officers (type rated) for its Airbus A320 fleet.
Applicants for the post of Senior First Officer must be 55 years of age and below and should be an Indian national or an OCI holder, IndiGo said in its job posting.
Must also possess valid DGCA issued ATPL with A320 endorsement along with valid FRTO, RTR and Class 1 Medical as per the post.
Pilots are required to have flown at least 200 hours and should have an accident-free and incident-free record at the time of application, IndiGo said.
IndiGo hiring freeze due to new government rules
Pilots’ association Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) had earlier accused IndiGo of implementing a hiring freeze despite knowing that the Civil Aviation Ministry’s new FTDL norms would require more people to do the job.
On December 5, IndiGo canceled over 1,000 flights in a single day, the most in the airline’s history. On the same day, the government kept its FTDL standards on hold until 10 February 2026. The new FTDL standards mandated 48 hours of rest per week for pilots, up from the current 36 hours.
The second phase of these standards, which entered into force on November 1 and consists in changing the night definition to 12-18 hours from 12-17 hours earlier, and limiting the number of night landings to two out of six earlier, applies to all domestic carriers.
DGCA issues point to the cause of IndiGo’s notice
Aviation watchdog DGCA on Saturday issued a notice to IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers and manager-in-charge Isidro Porqueras seeking an explanation within 24 hours regarding the massive flight disruption.
“…as CEO, you are responsible for ensuring the efficient management of the airline, but you failed in your duty to ensure timely arrangements for the conduct of reliable operations and the availability of necessary facilities for passengers,” he said in his notice to Elbers.
In its latest update, IndiGo said it operated 1,500 flights on Saturday. It also said that more than 9% of network connectivity has already been restored as it was able to operate to 135 of the existing 138 destinations in service.
