IndiGo under CCI scanner after mass cancellations of flights

NEW DELHI: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) will now probe whether a case of abuse of dominance is made out against IndiGo — which has over 60% domestic market share and is also the single largest airline in terms of international traffic to & from India — as well as review allegations of antitrust violations. CCI Thursday took cognisance of “information filed against IndiGo of recent flight disruptions, across various routes” and will “proceed further in the matter… based on initial assessment.” This development comes on a day when the airline announced it expects to operate over 2,200 flights after having stabilised operations completely.



Ashok Chawla, former aviation & finance secretary who was also CCI chairman, said: “IndiGo has a dominant position in Indian airlines space. Given the widespread chaos seen earlier this month, CCI can in such a situation examine if there is a prima facie case of ‘abuse of dominance’. If the same is established, it could potentially lead to some fine or other remedies by the antitrust agency.” IndiGo had cancelled close to 5,000 flights earlier this month, affecting lakhs of passengers.




In the past, CCI has multiple times probed complains of alleged cartelisation by airlines in deciding fuel surcharge. This is possibly the first time abuse of dominance could be probed in the sector. Theoretically, CCI can fine IndiGo or ask it to give up up some routes on which it is the dominant player. The extreme step, never been used in India so far, is of ordering the splitting of a company on the grounds that it has become too big leading to a near monopoly.

Meanwhile, IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers — under whose watch the mega airline suffered its first ever schedule collapse — Thursday said: “The worst is behind us… On Dec 9, I shared stabilisation of IndiGo’s operation. After that, we restored our network to 2,200 flights (on Thursday)… Now we focus on 3 things: resilience, root cause analysis and rebuilding.”

While Elbers said “a compounding effect of several factors” and that “similar disruptions (had) occurred in other parts of the world with large airlines,” the DGCA probe into IndiGo fiasco is expected by this weekend.

Govt sources say IndiGo’s over 2,200 flights includes international ones too. “They used to operate over 2,000 domestic flights and that number is now below 1,900 — ranging from 1,755 on Dec 15 to 1,869 on Dec 17,” said sources.

One of the complaints against IndiGo with CCI is of IndiGo cancelling flights and then hiking fares in an alleged abuse of its dominant position. Spike in domestic airfares had led govt on Dec 6 capping the same at Rs 18,000 (taxes, airport charges extra) till the situation stabilises.