India, Dec. 5 -- The government's decision to put the revised flight duty time rules (the FDTL norms) on hold, which were formed to ensure safer flying, is more than a brief tactical retreat. It amounts to surrender.

These rules were notified nearly two years ago, following consultations with airlines and safety experts. They were not abrupt instructions but carefully designed fatigue-mitigation measures, aligned with international standards and grounded in decades of evidence about how pilot exhaustion increases operational risk.

When the deadline for compliance arrived and chaos erupted, flight cancellations across the network, passengers stranded for hours, terminals crammed with distressed travellers, it wasn't because the rules wer...