Indigo’s travails show how unexpected turbulence can always be round the corner

 One of the reasons for Indigo becoming India’s number one airline was its on-time performance. It turned it into an advertising slogan, indicating its own confidence in its operational efficiency. You could see it in the airport check-in counter, where long snaking queues would progress at lightning speed as an army of staffers managed it. The airline achieved massive scale but held on to this ability. And yet this week, that very same phenomenon plummeted to a low. The timing became abysmal, flights were cancelled, passengers spent hours in the airport making social media posts, and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) asked for explanations.

The reason is correlated with that same clinical efficiency. When all factors were predictable and manageable, the standard operational processes delivered. When one limb went out of whack, there was a domino effect. This was the new DGCA regulations com­ing into force that gave pilots more rest hours and fewer night-time flights.

 Suddenly, technological glitches, weather, conges­tion, all began to compound until the system floundered.

 This is the price of optimisation that modern businesses are tailored to. Nothing, not a moment or a resource, can be wasted, and the fine-tuning towards it is relentless. But then something unexpected appears on the horizon and there is a tailspin. You saw that during the beginning of Covid-19 when everything imploded together as supply chains cancelled each other out. Or even recently when the tariff wars under Donald Trump were unleashed and retaliatory measures by China over rare-earth supply upended automobile production everywhere.

It is why buffers exist and are so important. Indigo itself has it when it comes to promising arrival timings. Even if the flight Is delayed, it still remains on time. How then could this particular moment have slipped through? The new DGCA regulations were announced much earlier, and Indigo was hoping for more time. Implementation would have come at the cost of temporary inefficiencies, or maybe the resources required for the makeover made them hesitant. The delay has now cost them in terms of reputation and to not have a buffer earlier means to significantly increase the price for making amends.