Altitude High, Attitude Higher and No Seat Belts for the Middle Class

The IndiGo implosion is far more than a flurry of flight fiascos. It lays bare a deeper disease of monopoly muscle and sarkari selfishness. It is also the latest chapter in a very old Indian story: our political and corporate establishments share a quiet, well-honed disdain for the ordinary Indian’s time, dignity and rights. From colonial salt taxes to nationalised bank queues to modern telecom blackouts, Indian institutions, both public and private, have long shared the belief that ordinary Indians exist to endure pain, not demand. The British may have left, but the administrative DNA remains: if people suffer, they’ll adjust; if rules hurt business, rules will bend; if a monopoly misbehaves, the State will rush in with hot towels and excuses. Faced with new fatigue rules , Indigo banked on the usual Indian formula: “chalta hai, rules will get diluted, we’ll manage.” Instead of trimming schedules or hiring adequately, IndiGo did what other institutions have always done: squeeze the middle, shave the margins, and pray the regulator blinks.  And blink it did. The DGCA swiftly rolled back protections designed to reduce pilot fatigue—protections created after years of global best-practice research—because a single private airline couldn’t be bothered to plan. Safety norms became negotiable, crew  rest time became optional, and hence consumer rights evaporated in the departure hall. Thousands of middle class citizens i.e. paying customers, taxpayers, voters stood abandoned in serpentine lines, staring at departure screens that lied. The rich used private jets.

`          India’s middle class is always milked for taxes, lectured on national duty, yet denied basic consumer protections Westerners take for granted. No EU-style compensation for cancellations or statutory damages for willful service denial. Transparent accountability from regulators Too “anti-business”. Instead, airlines over-sell capacity, under-hire pilots, and then retreat behind legalese when things fall apart. And the State, that so-called guardian of citizens, often behaves like a corporate HR department: protective of the company, evasive with people. The political leadership issued statements, but no one showed up at airports to face the exhausted travellers, the elderly in wheelchairs, the students missing exams, the families missing weddings. The crisis was the perfect metaphor of power speaking from a distance, responsibility outsourced to junior staff and social-media interns.

            In 1980, when Singapore Airlines’ pilots staged a crippling “go slow” that disrupted the country’s essential lifelines, its tough prime minister Lee Kuan Yew summoned the union leaders to Parliament at 3 AM and delivered one of the most ferocious public reprimands in modern governance. His declaration  of “You take on the Government, you pick the wrong fight”  was not a threat, but a statement of civic order: no private group, however skilled or essential, would be allowed to hold citizens hostage. Within hours, the revolt ended. Within weeks, structural reforms ensured that neither corporate ego nor professional cartels could ever again override public interest. Singapore emerged with the unshakeable rule that essential services exist for the nation, not above it. India’s reaction to the IndiGo crisis was the precise opposite. The overwhelming instinct of the State was not to protect citizens but to protect a corporate schedule. IndiGo’s collapse revealed a national habit of confusing size with legitimacy. A company becomes too big to challenge, too connected to inconvenience, too central to discipline. Regulators forget they are meant to act on behalf of citizens, not act as corporate caretakers. Politicians mistake silence for stability. India needs a foundational reset.

1. Break monopoly comfort. A market where one airline holds 60% share is not competition; it is capture. Slots, bilateral rights, and expansion approvals must be redistributed to prevent any airline from becoming systemically indispensable.

2. Enforce a ruthless Passenger Bill of Rights. Compensation for cancellations must be punitive, not symbolic. Make it expensive to lie to passengers.

3. Punish knowing over-selling as consumer fraud. If you sell flights you cannot operate, that is not an “operational issue.” It is deception.

4. Regulate with spine, not sympathy. DGCA must choose: protect citizens or protect corporate schedules. Not both.

5. Rebuild a culture where the public is not expendable. India cannot aspire to be a global aviation hub while treating its own people as an afterthought.

            The IndiGo crisis is not about aviation but about how modern India struggles to treat its own people as rights-bearing citizens. Until we hardwire respect for the individual into both governance and business, the next meltdown, whether of banking, digital services or healthcare will repeat the same pattern. The next crisis will not merely ground flights. It could endanger safety, destabilise infrastructure, and shred what little public trust remains. Unless that ‘chalta hai’ instinct is broken, this will not be the last collapse. It will just be the least catastrophic.