New Delhi, Dec 12: India’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has dismissed four flight inspectors who were responsible for monitoring the safety and operational standards of IndiGo.

The action comes amid a deepening crisis at the airline, which has cancelled thousands of flights this month due to poor planning and failure to meet stricter safety norms.

The cancellations have left tens of thousands of passengers stranded across the country. IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers has again been summoned by the DGCA and will appear before the officials again on Friday.

According to sources, the DGCA acted against the inspectors after finding negligence in their inspection and monitoring duties.

The regulator has now deployed two special oversight teams at IndiGo’s Gurugram office to closely track the airline’s operations.

These teams will submit a daily report to the DGCA by 6 p.m. One team is monitoring IndiGo’s fleet strength, pilot availability, crew utilisation hours, training schedules, split-duty patterns, unplanned leave, standby crew, and the number of flights affected due to crew shortage.

It is also reviewing the airline’s average stage length and network to understand the full scale of the operational disruption.

The second team is focusing on the impact of the crisis on passengers. This includes checking the status of refunds from both the airline and travel agents, compensation offered under Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR), on-time performance, baggage return, and the overall cancellation status.

IndiGo has been ordered to reduce its operations by 10 per cent to stabilise its schedules and control further disruptions.

The airline usually operates around 2,200 flights per day, which means more than 200 flights will now be cancelled daily.

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu said passengers had suffered “severe inconvenience” because of IndiGo’s mismanagement of crew rosters, flight timings, and communication.

After a meeting with IndiGo CEO Elbers, the minister said the airline must follow all ministry directives, including fare caps and measures to support affected passengers.

As the DGCA probe continues and IndiGo’s CEO has been summoned for further explanations, the airline has announced compensation for travellers who faced extreme delays between December 3 and 5.

New Delhi, Dec 12: Meta India on Friday announced the appointment of Aman Jain as its new Head of Public Policy.

He will take charge early next year and will report to Simon Milner, Meta’s Vice President of Policy for the Asia Pacific region.

Jain will also join the company’s India leadership team as part of his new role.

“Jain will join the company early next year and will report to Simon Milner, Vice President of Policy, Asia Pacific (APAC). In this role, Aman will also be a member of the India leadership team,” the firm said in a statement.

Aman Jain comes with more than two decades of experience in public policy and business strategy.

He has worked with major global companies such as Amazon and Google, as well as with the Indian Government and international organisations.

At Google India, he served in key leadership positions, including Country Head for Government Affairs and Public Policy.

Most recently, he was the Director of Public Policy at Amazon, where he led policy strategy across areas like marketplace operations, competition, and technology.

Welcoming Jain to the company, Simon Milner said that India remains a crucial market for Meta, especially as the country’s digital economy continues to grow in areas like artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, and the creator economy.

He added that Meta aims to support the development of a more inclusive and trusted internet ecosystem in India.

“As the country’s digital economy accelerates across areas such as AI, emerging tech and the creator economy, Meta aims to help build a more inclusive, trusted, and future-ready internet ecosystem for India,” it added.

Milner said he is pleased to have Aman Jain on board and believes his deep experience in technology and public policy will strengthen Meta’s engagement with regulators and industry partners.

He also noted that Jain will play an important role in Meta’s wider APAC policy leadership team.

New Delhi, Dec 11: Limping back to normalcy, IndiGo on Thursday offered travel vouchers worth Rs 10,000 to customers who were severely impacted during the flight disruption earlier this month.

The airline “regrettably acknowledged” that several people travelling between December 3 and 5 were stranded for many hours at major airports nationwide. The crisis caused thousands of cancellations and delays, keeping passengers in long queues.

“We will offer travel vouchers worth Rs 10,000 to such severely impacted customers. These travel vouchers can be used for any future IndiGo journey for the next 12 months,” an IndiGo spokesperson said in a statement.

The compensation is in addition to the commitment under the existing government guidelines, as per which, IndiGo will provide compensation of Rs 5000 to Rs 10,000, depending on the block time of the flight, to those customers whose flights were cancelled within 24 hours of departure time.

IndiGo also noted that “all necessary refunds for cancelled flights have been initiated”, including bookings through a travel partner platform.

The airline said that it is “committed” to restoring a “safe, smooth, and reliable” experience.

Earlier in the day, IndiGo Chairman Vikram Singh Mehta said that the airline’s Board will bring in external technical experts to work with the management and identify the root causes behind last week’s massive flight disruptions.

He said the experts will help ensure that such large-scale operational failures never happen again.

Meanwhile, the company stated that all destinations in the airline’s network have been fully connected since December 8, and operations have stabilised since December 9.

On December 8, it flew more than 1,750 flights with just one same-day cancellation, and on December 9, it had over 1,800 flights and zero cancellations. Over 1,900 flights took off on December 10, while just two were cancelled on the same day.

On Thursday, IndiGo said it expects “to operate more than 1,950 flights with approximately 300,000 customers”.