Welcome aboard India’s booming aviation sector. Please fasten your seatbelts, stow your illusions, and brace for impact. Indians are flying blind. On June 12, 230 passengers boarded Air India Flight 171 in Ahmedabad. Thirty seconds after takeoff, the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plunged into a medical college hostel. It wasn’t just a crash—it was a massacre, and one that could have been prevented. And like so many others in India’s increasingly dystopian aviation landscape, it exposed not just the condition of the aircraft but the rot at the very heart of our aviation ecosystem.
In any functioning democracy, such a tragedy would be a moment of reckoning. But not in India. Instead, distraught relatives ran from morgue to morgue, clutching photographs of burnt bodies and unanswered questions. For days, there were no officials with answers. There was no crisis response team. Hardly a responsive centralised helpline, which should have been mandatory.
The main crisis that allows airlines to get away with murder is that there is no regulator fixing accountability. Sympathy without empathy is a sign of apathy. Add indifference at the helm, and the picture is complete: four senior executives threw an official party days after the crash. Thankfully, they were sacked. And the conscience cancelled perceived callousness, with the Tatas setting up a foundation with a huge Rs 500-crore corpus to look after the interests of the victims.
Let’s drop the polite fiction. This wasn’t a tragedy. This was premeditated negligence dressed up as routine incompetence. India’s aviation sector isn’t flying high—it’s spiralling into a tailspin of regulatory cowardice, corporate greed, and political indifference. And the blood is everywhere: on the tarmac, in the air, and on the hands of those who allowed it.
India’s duopoly airlines sector doesn’t run airlines; in the public eye, it runs extortion rackets at 35,000 feet. Between them, the two main airline groups control 88.5 percent of the Indian skies. Fares have turned surreal: Rs 8,500 for a 50-minute Delhi-Chandigarh hop, Rs 10,200 for Chennai-Coimbatore. IndiGo flew 118 million passengers last year and walked away with Rs 7,258 crore in profit. Air India plays coy with its books but flexes its power with a 470-aircraft mega order.
After Go First’s death and SpiceJet’s gasping 4 percent market share, there’s no competition—just cartel capitalism. And the regulator? Oh wait, India doesn’t have one. It has the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which is to civil aviation what a toothpick is to a knife fight.
India’s so-called aviation watchdog is a bureaucratic zombie—underfunded, undermanned, and under political leash. With 53 percent vacancies and a 91 percent capital outlay cut, it operates more like a confused HR department than a regulator. When it finally emerged from its slumber last week, its June 24 inspection report read like a horror novel: unserviceable baggage trolleys, defect logs not filled, improperly secured life vests, maintenance protocols ignored, and repeated technical glitches shrugged off like indigestion. What did the DGCA do with this damning data? Issued a press release, patted itself on the back and curled back into hibernation.
India is one of the only major aviation markets without a statutory, independent regulator. Countries like the UK, Brazil, South Africa and neighbouring Nepal have bodies that don’t report to ministries and have powers to ground aircraft, fine carriers, enforce passenger rights, and even jail executives. The US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has 45,000 employees and a $20-billion budget. India’s DGCA can barely file accident reports on time.
Other nations reacted to aviation tragedies by reforming. After the 2008 SpanAir crash, the EU mandated safety management systems. After the 737 MAX disasters of 2018-19, the FAA grounded Boeing jets for 20 months and forced design changes. After engine issues in 2023, Australia’s CASA cracked down on Qantas. Japan’s JTSB responded to its 2025 Tokyo runway collision within days. In India, the DGCA waited two weeks after the Ahmedabad crash to investigate pilot fatigue and rostering issues. The only thing that moves quickly in Indian aviation is the fare meter. Without a regulator, airlines have been taking choice-starved passengers for a ride. But yes, we have a regulator for airport quality—because runway tiles seemingly matter more than human lives.
Meanwhile, in March 2025, as a Kolkata-Delhi IndiGo flight was diverted to Jaipur for “weather”, one Priya Sharma missed her father’s funeral. When a woman fainted mid-flight on a Rs 7,500-a-pop Bengaluru-Hyderabad flight, the crew at first ignored her; her daughter wept: “She’s my mother!” Last month, an IndiGo flight on a Guwahati-Chennai run sent out a May Day call for fuel. A Delhi-Srinagar aircraft was battered by hail. Ahmedabad saw 462 bird strikes in one year.
What India needs is not murmurs of sympathy; it needs a wrecking ball. It doesn’t require lip service to reform. Neither a committee, nor a 700-page report. India needs to burn down the current system and start over. Create an independent Civil Aviation Regulatory Authority—fully statutory, ruthlessly empowered, immune from political interference. Let it be the judge, jury, and executioner for safety violations. Let it hire international experts. Give it a budget to match its bite. Make it feared. The powers of the regulator should be sweeping.
It is a priority to enforce fare transparency and consumer rights. Why aren’t CEOs who falsify maintenance logs sent to jail instead of fattening their expense accounts to feast on foie gras and frappato? Be human and don’t treat customers like cattle: slash prices during emergencies. Public audits of every crash, diversion, or emergency landing must be the rule. Force insurance payouts within weeks, not years. Ban toxic in-flight food and arrogant crew. Name and shame airlines with safety scores published monthly.
AirSewa should be a weapon, not a wish. The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission should be cleared for rapid trials. Every airline executive must live in fear of the next inspection. India’s airlines have become flying casinos where the house always wins, and the passenger always loses. Every crash is blamed on “weather” or “technical error”—never the systemic rot that breeds these disasters. How long before a plane falls from the sky onto parliament? Would we care then? A real regulator should ensure that no mother is left to sob over a zipped black bag because someone decided to save on maintenance.
The system has circled its wagons to protect the culprits. India has reluctantly allowed an international investigator to join the crash probe, one that numerous air safety experts have lambasted for delays in analysing crucial black box data. A regulator should function like a sword, carving a future where no mother mourns, no husband breaks and no survivor begs. It’s not a watchdog we need. We need a wolf in regulator’s clothing.
Read all columns by Prabhu chawla
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com
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