IndiGo puts focus on building resilience after December operations glitch
Capacity in the quarter through March will likely grow in the range of 10 per cent, CEO Elbers said, as the airline takes delivery of about one new aircraft a week on average
 "IndiGo puts focus on building resilience after December operations glitch")
By Mihir Mishra and Avril Hong
IndiGo will focus on strengthening operations and internal processes this year, following a severe system failure in December that laid bare the limits to the Indian budget carrier’s rapid expansion.
“Building resilience in the system and making sure that the massive ops we have today, with 2,200 daily flights, is further solidified” will be a key priority for the airline this year, Chief Executive Officer Pieter Elbers said in an interview with Bloomberg TV at the Singapore Airshow on Tuesday.
Asia’s largest low-cost carrier suffered an operational meltdown in the first week of December that forced it to cancel 2,500 flights in three days. The chaos prompted an intervention by India’s aviation regulator alongside a fine, as management was singled out for blame in the disruption.
Elbers said the company has re-evaluated its systems as a result of the failure, though he didn’t provide any concrete changes in operation that have followed from the episode.
IndiGo is now back to operating more than 2,200 flights a day carrying as many as 380,000 passengers. Capacity in the quarter through March will likely grow in the range of 10 per cent, Elbers said, as the airline takes delivery of about one new aircraft a week on average.
The company recently started operating its Airbus SE A321 XLR plane that can fly long-distance missions using a smaller single-aisle plane. After launching flights to Athens from Delhi and Mumbai last month, IndiGo will next add Istanbul to the routes served with the aircraft, he said.