India, Dec. 5 -- India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) finally had to walk back on norms, including improved duty hours and leave policy for pilots, on Friday, December 5, after the country's dominant airline, IndiGo, continued to have mass cancellations.

December 5 was the fourth day of the chaos, and it began with all IndiGo flights from the national capital Delhi being cancelled.

By the afternoon, the government regulator DGCA retracted the new Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) that had come into effect from November 1, terming it to be a "temporary one time extension".

Since IndiGo controls majority of the air travel sector in India, and has persistent staffing trouble, the problem gained scale starting December 2....