New Delhi: A parliamentary committee reviewing the recent disruption of air services across the country on Wednesday (December 17) reportedly found the responses of senior Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) officials and IndiGo’s chief operating officer (COO) as “evasive and unconvincing”.The parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture, chaired by Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) MP Sanjay Jha met to discuss the operational meltdown at IndiGo since early December, which led to the cancellation of over 5,000 flights affecting at least 12.5 lakh passengers. In the meeting, IndiGo was represented by a team led by COO Isidro Porqueras, while civil aviation secretary Samir Kumar Sinha headed the delegation from the ministry and the DGCA. Officials from Air India, Air India Express, Akasa and SpiceJet were also present during the nearly four-hour-long session.Economic Times reported that a source familiar with the deliberations said the representatives of IndiGo and the DGCA attempted to attribute the disruptions to technical problems rather than accepting responsibility, describing their explanations as “evasive and unconvincing”.According to sources, several members of the committee questioned whether the ministry had been ill-prepared for the fallout from the revised Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) norms or whether the situation was the result of an “arms-twisting technique” by IndiGo to secure exemptions under the new duty schedule, the report added.The committee members said they had taken serious note of the hardship faced by passengers due to the disruption of flight services. One member pointed out that even MPs attending the Winter Session of parliament in Delhi were affected by IndiGo’s cancellations and delays by other airlines. Several parliamentarians also reported receiving complaints about a sharp rise in airfares during the period.During the meeting, Airlines Pilots Association India (ALPA) president captain Sam Thomas alleged there was “corruption at every level” in the ministry of civil aviation and the DGCA . The panel members asked him to substantiate the charge with evidence, The Hindu reported.On the flight disruption matter, the committee “didn’t take any view” and chose instead to await the findings of the civil aviation ministry’s ongoing inquiry into the episode, a source told ET. The ministry has set up a four-member panel to examine the circumstances that led to the widespread operational breakdown. The report of this panel is expected to be submitted on December 28.IndiGo had cancelled thousands of flights nationwide for several days earlier in December due to a lack of proper planning and crew shortages in implementing the new regulations on pilots’ duty periods and rest, which were put in place from November 1. In response, the DGCA issued notices to IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers and COO Porqueras, seeking explanations for the cancellations.In a video message on Thursday (December 18), Elbers told employees that the airlines is now focussing on rebuilding post-stabilisation of operations, and that the airline’s board has appointed an external aviation expert to conduct a comprehensive root-cause analysis.“On December 9, I shared the stabilisation of IndiGo’s operation. After that, we restored our network to 2,200 flights today (Thursday). Now we focus on three things: resilience, root cause analysis and rebuilding (the airline),” Elbers said.