Indigo pilot's open letter

Here’s the full, extracted text of a heartfelt letter written by an Indigo Pilot:-

Open Letter to My Fellow Citizens, and to the Management of IndiGo

I am writing this not as a spokesperson, not as someone hiding behind corporate language, but as an IndiGo employee who has lived through every shift, every sleepless night, every humiliation, every squeezed pay cheque, and every impossible roster.

And I am writing this as an Indian, because the state of this airline is no longer just an internal issue — it affects millions of people in this country.

I need you to hear this from someone who has been inside long enough to understand how we reached this breaking point. Nothing Happened Overnight — We All Saw It Coming

IndiGo didn’t collapse in a day. This downfall was years in the making.

We started off small in 2006. We were proud — genuinely proud — of what we were building.

But somewhere along the way, pride turned into arrogance, and growth turned into greed. The attitude became: “We are too big to fail.” Remember this phrase, yes we heard this in 2009 when Lehman Brothers and likes failed. And we, the employees, kept warning — sometimes quietly, sometimes desperately. But no one listened.

Meanwhile, the country kept calling IndiGo the “free market success story,” even as it strangled competition route by route.

Does someone remember how they hounded Akasa Air on there launch sectors by deploying over capacity, they did that in part with every other airline.

Everyone saw it — passengers, employees, the government. But we all looked away and now we blame this to monopoly.

What We Faced Inside — And What No One Talks About

The real rot started when titles became more important than talent. Suddenly, people who couldn’t even draft a proper email were becoming VPs — because being a VP meant access to ESOPs and power.

And how do you justify that power? By squeezing the employees under you. Pilots raised concerns about fatigue and unsafe duty timings. Instead of being heard, some were called to the head office, intimidated, shouted at, and humiliated.

No consequences. No accountability. Just fear.

When night duties were doubled, when new rules were implemented, when leaves were taken away — not a single extra rupee was added to compensate for the physical and mental toll.

Ground staff, some barely earning ₹16,000–18,000 a month, kept running — literally running — from aircraft to aircraft, sometimes doing the work of three people.

Engineers juggling multiple aircraft at once, ever cared to notice aircraft stopping next to the gate and fragile soul running with two wands or TT kinda bat from one bay to another so that you can reach the destination on time on a flight which normally takes 1 hours but sold to you as 1hour 20 mins flight and then you always arrive early.

Cabin crew facing passengers with a smile while crying in the galley.

And the messaging from the top? “You’re lucky to have a job.” Or worse: “Beggars can’t be choosers.” Imagine hearing that from one of your so called undeserving VP.

We did.

How Do You Expect Us to Serve the Nation When We Ourselves Are Broken?

You may have noticed in recent years that IndiGo stopped calling you “passengers” and started calling you “customers.” This was intentional. We were told: “If you call them passengers, they’ll think they own the airline.” Think about that shift for a second. That mindset. This though towards the people who pay for the seats, who trust us with their lives.

When employees feel exploited, unvalued, and exhausted, how do you think they can give you the service you deserve? It’s not because we don’t care. We care deeply. It’s because we are running on empty.

And Then There Is the Regulator

We felt alone. Always alone. When pilots tried to move abroad, licence validations were delayed endlessly. Everyone inside aviation knows this reality. And yes — at one point there were even “unofficial prices” whispered about for faster processing.

When fatigue rules changed in ways that made our schedules even more brutal, there was no representation, no union strong enough to stand up, and no regulator who pushed back.

IndiGo grew.

But the people who fly the planes, repair the planes, and handle the planes — we were left behind.

Where We Are Today — A Crisis We Pretend Is a Surprise

My fellow citizens, I know you are angry, I see the videos. I hear the stories. I meet you at the airport. You wonder why the airline feels broken.

But we have been broken for years.

We warned them. We watched the system crack. We watched colleagues quit or burn out. We watched leadership fly in and out of Europe while we silently prayed for one extra hour of rest.

And now the world laughs at us.

When I travelled recently, people joked, “Indians can’t even run one stable airline?” It hurts because it’s not the Indian workforce failing you.

It’s the Management mostly foreigners

My Appeal — As a Colleague, As a Citizen, As a Human Being

I beg the government — yes, beg — to: • Set minimum wages for ground staff • Enforce minimum manpower per aircraft • Revisit fatigue rules with employee representation • Penalise operational negligence that affects lakhs of passengers

IndiGo will not collapse from paying its employees fairly.

But it will collapse if it continues treating them like they don’t matter.

This airline became great because of its people—pilots, engineers, ground staff, cabin crew. And those people are pleading for help. Let This Be a Turning Point

I love aviation. I love my job. I love this country.

And it breaks my heart to see how something we built with pride is now held together by fear, exhaustion, and silence.

I am writing this because I refuse to stay silent anymore.

And being an insider I’ll call names

It starts with

Peter Elbers who was holidaying at his native Netherlands when this wildfire happened. Isidore Porqueras who hails from land of Señoritas and no one has a clue what he’s doing here.