India's Aviation Crisis Is All About Too Big to Tame (bloomberg.com)
- Reference: 0180339565
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/09/141227/indias-aviation-crisis-is-all-about-too-big-to-tame
- Source link: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-12-09/india-s-aviation-crisis-is-all-about-too-big-to-tame
InterGlobe Aviation, IndiGo's parent company, told regulators that stricter requirements for night flying and weekly rest periods created an acute crew shortage. The Airline Pilots Association of India called the regulatory rollback a "dangerous precedent," noting that management had known about the requirements since early last year.
IndiGo controls 65.6% of India's domestic aviation market as of October 2025 and briefly became the world's most valuable airline in April. The crisis arrives as India's second-largest carrier, Air India, remains under investigation following a June crash that killed 241 passengers and crew. Authorities have imposed temporary price caps to prevent gouging.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-12-09/india-s-aviation-crisis-is-all-about-too-big-to-tame
Never mind safety! (Score:3)
Won't anyone think of the lost profits??
India's "yes" probelm is too big to tame. (Score:5, Insightful)
India, in my experience, is a society where the word "no" is the dirtiest word imaginable. It's unconscionable that anyone might say no to anything. Doubly so to their boss.
So every answer is a yes, doesn't matter if it's "yes I can" or "yes I cant" which leads to situations where anything deliverable is impossible to... well.. deliver. Any corner that can be cut gets cut, cut again and someone gets out an angle grinder to see how much can be shaved off after that. After things aren't delivered the finger pointing game begins with everyone shrugging and saying "it's not me". Meetings are convened with as many people as can be drawn into them as possible in order to dilute the chances that an individual can be held accountable and to reduce the chances that an individual might get an action item at the end of it. The meeting usually ends with the scheduling of another meeting with even more people in it. Of course, no-one can even consider saying "no" to any of this.
No is the "rudest" thing you can say to an Indian.
So is it any surprise that India's aviation sector is in shambles, thousands of flights cancelled because they can't meet schedules because ultimately, they just cant say "no, this is not possible, we can't meet that demand/schedule/deadline". So they're blaming safety regs, hey it's not so bad when you live in a society where life is cheap and almost everyone believes in reincarnation, plus all the airliners are foreign built so they can cop the blame for any problems.
India's aviation sector isn't the only one suffering from the yes problem.... it's just the most obvious because safe aviation is notoriously cautious and conservative, hence you have to say "no" a lot.
Re: India's "yes" probelm is too big to tame. (Score:2, Informative)
+5 insightful analysis (I speak as a proud American of Indian origin who just got caught in the Indigo sh*tstorm, but would've agreed about this societal artifact even otherwise).
Re: (Score:2)
This is hardly unique to India. I remember sitting in a meeting with a project leader and the head of our Japanese research center. The project leader wanted him to agree to something, and I did not want to. He just sat there silent while the project leader asked the question over and over again in different words. I am not sure, if he was trying to wear him down (a useless activity) or really did not understand that not agreeing meant no.
Re: (Score:2)
Not comparable in the slightest. The Japanese may not say no, but they don't do it while lying, as evident by your example. The Indians will outright say yes to your face and then apologise afterwards when they don't do the thing they said yes to.
This isn't just project management, this is as straight forward as "Pick me up from the hotel at 1pm." "Yes Sir" and after catching an Uber to my destination I got a "Sorry Sir" the day after when the guy who said yes flat out admitted that he knew he wasn't roster
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Is this really unique to India though? There's certainly an analogue in British politeness.
When I've dealt with British collogues, instead of firmly rejecting an idea they will say something like "you might consider... xyz" when they really mean "that's a terrible idea and we absolutely should not do it." People not accustomed to this will often misunderstand and believe that the British speaker has agreed (or at least acquiesced) to something they have not. They can also be similarly reluctant to directly
Re: (Score:2)
> Is this really unique to India though? There's certainly an analogue in British politeness.
The two are nothing alike. British politeness is sometimes unbearable but in India the "yes" culture isn't even stopped by agreeing to two incompatible things. The answer there is to lie to your face by agreeing and then apologising afterwards.
It is an insane culture where you can't be sure that what you agreed on will actually happen in the slightest.
Re: Companies hold society hostage (Score:3)
Yup. Meeting emissions goals too hard? Roll them back. Safety regulations hard? Roll them back. Pensions cost too much? Cancel them. Pollution limits too hard? Ignore them. We're in a stage where the only acceptable level of profit is "all of it" and no other consideration is considered.
Re: Companies hold society hostage (Score:1)
Is the slashdot answer to "Free speech too hard?" just "Ban more because profits will suffer if censorship-loving users stop posting"?
Re: Companies hold society hostage (Score:3, Funny)
I don't see a rash of bans, but I do see the same abusers of moderation given all the mod points they can use every day.
Re: Companies hold society hostage (Score:1)
Am I wrong to feel like it's really close to a ban when I get post-throttled due to abusive moderation?
Re: Companies hold society hostage (Score:2)
Not really IMO, moderation is broken by design at best
Re: Companies hold society hostage (Score:4, Insightful)
> Companies being compelled to do something is called fascism. You know, state control of private organizations. But the left love that!
Fascism is far right... that's when government and corporate power merge.
But you know that. You just don't want to admit that your favourite corrupt government is fascist.
Unless you're honestly trying to say Trump is "left" because he keeps compelling companies to do things for him.
Re: (Score:2)
Every one dimensional metric oversimplifies things. But "fascism" is not well defined enough to use as a metric. And "statism" is the wrong term, if you're going to contrast against "individual freedom" the opposite pole should be "authoritarianism". E.g. many small communities traditionally didn't have any central government (i.e. no state), but they insisted on strict conformance to their rules via social pressure. (In that case the "authority" wouldn't be a person, but a set of social rules.)
Re: (Score:3)
The Republican Party abandoned limited government as a goal a long time ago. The Regan administration or before. They just want the benefits to go to a different place. No one in government is ever really in favor of reducing government, they are only interested in reducing the parts that negatively impact their donors.
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> The Republican Party abandoned limited government as a goal a long time ago. The Regan administration or before. They just want the benefits to go to a different place. No one in government is ever really in favor of reducing government, they are only interested in reducing the parts that negatively impact their donors.
This is the truth. Every party believes in limiting the parts of government that they don't like while expanding the parts that they do like.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not quite true. Occasionally some people in government do want to reduce the power of the government. For some reason they never end up making the decisions. This is because "power" is an instrumental goal that even an anarchist would desire if they wished to further their belief.