NEW DELHI: IndiGo operations could return to normal by Wednesday (December 10) and the airline is expected to operate 1,650 flights on Sunday, but well below the pre-crisis level of 2,200 daily.A day after being pulled up by the civil aviation ministry over the collapse of its operations for several days, the private carrier that controls 60% of domestic traffic complied with government directives and processed refunds of Rs 610 crore by Sunday evening, an official statement said, adding that 3,000 bags of passengers had been delivered until Saturday evening. The pending refunds as well as the baggage numbers were not disclosed.The aviation ministry said in a statement that IndiGo’s flight operations had increased from 706 on (last Friday) to 1,565 (last Saturday) and are likely to reach 1,650 by the end of Sunday (December 7).The airline said cancellations were made at an earlier stage, allowing it to inform customers in a more timely manner – something that was not done last week, resulting in chaos at airports across the country and impacting the operation of other airlines as well.IndiGo was in damage control mode, stating that its board of directors had set up a crisis management group comprising, among others, chairman V S Mehta and directors Gregg Saretsky, Mike Whitaker and Amitabh Kant as well as CEO Pieter Elbers. “This group has been meeting regularly to monitor the situation and is being constantly updated by the management of the measures being undertaken to restore normal operations... to address, as quickly as practically possible, the hardships suffered by our customers and other stakeholders while also restoring operational integrity across the airline’s network,” an IndiGo spokesperson said.
