Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed concern over the mass cancellation of IndiGo flights and the ensuing chaos at airports as he emphasised that the passengers should not be inconvenienced.
Addressing an NDA parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday, Modi also stressed that the rules and laws should be used to improve the system, not to harass people.
"During the NDA parliamentary meeting, the PM told NDA MPs that people should not be troubled or inconvenienced. Rules and laws are good, but in order to correct the system, it is not right to harass people," Parliamentary and Minority Affairs Ministry Kiren Rijiju said.
Modi’s comments came as the turmoil in civil aviation sparked by the mass cancellation of flights by IndiGo, India’s largest airline, entered its eighth consecutive day on Tuesday.
IndiGo cancelled around 180 flights from Bengaluru and Hyderabad on Tuesday, a day after it cancelled over 560 flights from six metro airports on Monday.
The Rahul Bhatia-controlled airline operates over 2,200 flights per day from 90-odd domestic destinations and 40-plus abroad destinations. It commands over 65 per cent of India's total domestic traffic.
Following the disruptions, the carrier is likely to lose some of its routes to other domestic airlines during the ongoing winter schedule after Union Civil Aviation Minister K. Rammohan Naidu said the government will "definitely" reduce IndiGo slots.
"We will definitely reduce the number of routes, which are in IndiGo's (winter) schedule. The order to this effect will be issued. This will be a kind of penalty on the airline as they will not be able to fly on those (curtailed) routes," Naidu said on Monday.
