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Summary
India’s pilots are pushing for full compliance of duty and rest norms, warning that continued relaxations risk safety and crew well-being. Citing recent deaths and rising fatigue concerns, they want a clear timeline to end exemptions, even as airlines face operational and staffing pressures.
India’s pilots have urged the aviation regulator to fully enforce flight duty time limitations (FDTL), warning that relaxations could compromise safety and crew wellbeing. In a 1 May letter, reviewed by Mint, the pilots' association cited recent pilot deaths and flagged rising fatigue risks, seeking a time-bound roadmap to end selective exemptions that, it said, have diluted the intent of the rules. Among other rules, the FDTL mandates a 48-hour ‘weekly rest’.
The Airline Pilots’ Association of India's (Alpa India) letter to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) comes after the sudden death of two Indian pilots in the last 24 hours.
The association has asked for all temporary variations to be “progressively withdrawn” and that authorities should disallow any proposals seeking dilution of the FDTL norms.
“We write to place on record a set of concerns that bear directly on flight safety, regulatory credibility, and the well-being of flight crew, especially in view of recent death of pilots this week,” Captain Sam Thomas, the association president, said in the letter to Vir Vikram Yadav, director general of the DGCA.
Implementation challenges
For context, apart from the 48-hour weekly rest rule under the fatigue norms, night duty—between midnight and 6am—is to be limited to two consecutive shifts and night landings are capped at two a week, with daily rest set at a 10-hour minimum span.
To achieve these, airlines would need to either hire more pilots as a buffer or bring down the volume of flights.
India's pilot fatigue norms were rolled out in two phases--1 July and 1 November 2025.
India has 25,001 licensed pilots below the age of 65, as per the civil aviation ministry's submission to Parliament in February. In November 2025, India’s civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu had said the country would need 30,000 pilots as it has ordered a total of around 1,700 jets from Boeing and Airbus.
Of the total pilots in the country, Air India has 3,432 pilots and co-pilots, Air India Express 1,972, IndiGo 5,455 pilots, Akasa 806, while SpiceJet has 393, as informed by the airlines to the DGCA on 17 December 2025.
The pilots’ association said repeated exemptions given to airlines have weakened the intent of the fatigue rules. “The continued grant of variations to operators has materially diluted the intent of the FDTL regulations,” it said adding that these variations “have effectively become the norm”.
Air India was recently granted exemption, specifically for its long-haul international flights. The airline had cited the airspace closure over Pakistan and the West Asia war leading to a fresh shutdown of the region's airspace leading to planes travelling extra hours for North America and Europe.
In December 2025, IndiGo had suffered an operational meltdown, leading to mass flight cancellations, as it failed to comply with the new stringent pilot duty and rest norms. It was granted relief till 10 February, to which the airline had promised compliance.
“A clearly articulated roadmap, with defined end of variations, would provide both regulatory certainty and operational clarity,” the pilots' association said.
Calls for transparency
The letter linked fatigue with the recent pilot deaths. “The continued unabated untimely death of pilots, both aged less than 45 years, recently speaks volumes.”
An Akasa Air pilot, in his mid-40s, died after a heart attack during a training session in Bengaluru on Thursday. Around the same time, an Air India pilot, on a scheduled rest, also died of a heart attack in Bali.
The association also raised concerns about airlines discouraging fatigue reporting. “Available information obtained through RTI (right to information) indicates an alarmingly low rate of acceptance of fatigue reports by operators,” it said, adding that such trends “undermine fatigue risk management systems”.
To improve oversight, it proposed mandatory disclosure of fatigue data. “Airlines are mandated to submit quarterly fatigue report data… [and] such data be placed in the public domain,” the letter said.
Pilots also sought publication of pilot health data, including medically ‘unfit’ trends, saying the absence of disclosure “creates an avoidable perception that material safety indicators are not being transparently examined.”
“The continued occurrence of untimely pilot fatalities and adverse health outcomes… warrants urgent attention,” the letter said.
“FDTL is a public safety issue, which is enacted as a law across the world. Whereas, in India, it is a policy document rolled out disguised as a safety issue: That is why you see selective variations being granted to FDTL to various airlines,” said Captain Shakti Lumba, an aviation professional. “Firstly, pilot safety and fatigue are serious concerns. But airlines' commercial interests supersede public and crew safety issues,” he added.
Emails seeking comments from the civil aviation ministry, the DGCA, Air India, Indigo and Akasa were not immediately answered.
About the Author
Abhishek Law
Abhishek Law has spent 18 years in journalism, which in news industry terms means he has survived several newsroom restructurings, countless “urgent” press releases, and more cups of tea than he can reasonably count. Based in New Delhi, he covers aviation for Mint, a sector where aircraft, oil prices, geopolitics and airline CEOs regularly conspire to make his life interesting.<br><br>Most of his time gets occupied by translating airline jargon like ASKs, yields, load factors and fleet strategies into language that doesn’t require a pilot’s licence. His motto is simple: if readers need a glossary, he hasn’t done his job properly.<br><br>On most days, the quadragenarian is tracking airline strategies, policy changes and the occasional mid-air disruption that suddenly become a stock market story. When planes are behaving themselves (which is not very often nowadays), he strays into other corporate beats like steel, trying to figure out what’s really happening.<br><br>He loves to talk, especially ask—that one more question which people are uncomfortable with, and saving contacts in his phone as a "Source who may or may not pick up calls”. <br><br>But, on a serious note, the goal remains simple: cut through jargon, find that additional detail, and turn complicated business stories into something one can actually enjoy reading.
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