India’s largest airline IndiGo (6E-IGO) has cancelled over 900 flights in just four days, causing an uproar among travellers. We break down what has happened, and explain why passengers can expect the turbulence to continue for weeks—if not months.
Why are IndiGo cancelling flights?
At the heart of IndiGo’s current crisis lies a regulatory change that’s been years in the making. In January 2024, India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) announced revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) rules to combat pilot fatigue:
- Weekly rest increased from 36 hours to 48 hours
- The definition of night hours expanded from 0000-0500 to 0000-0600
- Night landings limited to two per week, down from six
- Stricter caps on cumulative flying hours
These rules align India with international standards. Airlines lobbied for delays, and the DGCA agreed to a phased rollout. The first phase began in July this year, with the second phase commencing on November 1st.
IndiGo wakes up to a new reality
What has appeared obvious during the past couple of days is that IndiGo, despite nearly two years’ notice, has not succeeded in a smooth transition to abide by these new rules.
Instead, the operational collapse has been swift and severe. According to local media, for the month of November, IndiGo saw more than 1,200 flight cancellations, with 61% directly attributed to FDTL issues. December hasn’t started better for IndiGo. Cancellations and delays have led to an online outcry, as stranded passengers have aired their grievances on various platforms. Finally, earlier today, Friday the 5th of December, Delhi airport (DEL) publicly announced that all IndiGo departures from said airport were cancelled until midnight.
Passenger Advisory issued at 11:34 Hours#DelhiAirport #PassengerAdvisory #DELAdvisory pic.twitter.com/lVeV76itAW
— Delhi Airport (@DelhiAirport) December 5, 2025
Why IndiGo has been hit hardest
As many have noted, other Indian carriers have faced far less disruption. We can only guess as to why, but a fairly confident explanation could be a mixture of some airlines simply operating smaller fleets with a less dense schedule, while the obvious elephant in the room is the availability of crew. Airlines with a better “crew-to-aircraft” ratio simply have better chances of rostering according to the new rules.
Or to put it bluntly: more available crew makes life easier for crew planners, who we imagine presently are involved in quite a stressful session of scheduling whack-a-mole.
IndiGo admits fault and requests exemptions
IndiGo has admitted to the DGCA that disruptions stem largely from misjudgment and planning gaps. The airline requested temporary exemptions from FDTL provisions until February 10, 2026, warning that more cancellations would continue until December 8. The carrier pleaded for exemptions, warning that full operational stability wasn’t expected until mid-February (yes, more than two months away) otherwise.
In response to the crisis, the DGCA earlier today announced that the rule prohibiting crew planners to substitute leave for weekly rest, had been removed, effective immediately. Perhaps more important, the Indian regulator has granted IndiGo a time-limited exemption to the rule on allowed weekly night landings, basically reverting to the previous rule of six. Only time will tell if this mandate will have an effect or not on IndiGo’s punctuality.
Now what?
IndiGo has announced that they will cut back operations starting December 8 to align with available crew. Passengers should expect continued cancellations through mid-December, reduced flight frequency, possible delays due to crew positioning issues, and gradual improvement through early 2026.
If you’re tracking IndiGo on Flightradar24 over the coming weeks, expect a thinner network than usual.
14 Responses
The longest domestic route in India, Delhi to Port Blair, would be 3.5/4.0 hours.
Trunk routes (Delhi / Mumbai / Kolkata / Bengaluru / Chennai / North-East would be between 1.5 and 2.5 hours.
Typical single aisle aircraft in India have way more take-off/landing cycles than most other countries. If not all other countries.
Number of night landings per week at an airline with 12-14 hours per day uptime per aircraft is simply not going to work out at 2 per pilot per week.
Normally, in adcanved markets and professional landscape, an intense and detailed Audit is required to implement such large scale effecting policy and guidelines. But DGCA didn’t do that. What happens here: some Babu (bureucract in Hindi) drafts the policy, presents to the dspartment/government and it is implememted.. Roqster, Safety, Stricter parameters of SOP aren’t followed here.. No proper check list, no third party opinion!!. And when it is being implemented: who is at the receiving end??? Who suffers the most??. Can you imagine this at all in Dubai, Singapore, Hongkong??? Have those passangers ever felt and traumetised like this!!. And if happens so in these respective domains by any fault or chance, how they will suffer, can you imagine??? 75% top air carriers do not ferry domestic passangers, serve only international, so they are cautious, accountable, thoroughly professional.. There’s no charce for any any ifs & buts!!. Who will care in India?? After few days, everything is washed off. No one will remember this ordeal in next week onwards!!. This is the reason why Emirates carries more than 3 times of international passangers (outbound) than Air India from Indian territory!!. List is long.. No one is bothered. No one will listen!!.
That’s a good move by the regulator, airlines charging premium but offering less than budget must channelize earnings towards better standards for pilots, crew and passengers
They have had two years to hire additional staff to address this issue. As painful as this is going to be for passengers (I have flights booked in February on Indigo), they shouldn’t be rewarded for their own stupidity by granting them exemptions. They need to feel the pain.
Very irresponsible approach holding the passengers to ransom and had deployed and created purposeful disruption.
They though lived up to one of their advert banners “ Come for the flights, stay for the hotels. Get the best hotel deals on goindiGain” , Many travellers over the last couple of days if flying with Indigo had this reality dawn on them. Indigo not only must be apologising but also seriously look at their backyard and clean up the mess they created.
Indigo knew what must be done months back and instead of putting things into its place, they put their employees and passengers at risk. The government must act with severity and must put the operators in line and abide to the regulations.
It’s pre planned massive distruption of services and blackmailing of public . Money power to arm twist authorities and continue zero service business .
Greed and avarice on the part of the airlines with the support anf protection of the power centre eversince Indian Airlines was strangled to death.
ii) utter disregard to safety norms
iii) total insensitivity to public inconvenience
It’s a shame that Indigo admitted to misjudgment and poor planning after creating chaos and causing harassment to its gullible customers. I am a victim of that and say with conviction that Indigo management is MISCHIEVOUS . Prior and timely messages on email/other applications, would have helped in looking for alternatives. INDIGO is cheap in every respect.
Very well done for this simple and succinct explanation, which is more than what’s available in the Indian media. I’ll add just one more thing: there is a dawning realization that this was very well planned by IndiGo. They sold tickets to passengers, for flights that they knew they wouldn’t be able to crew. They never told passengers until the passengers had turned up at the airport; only to find delays and cancellations. They parked aircraft at their hubs, without enough ground crew to manage them. This resulted in chaos as gates and parking bays weren’t available, and passengers weren’t able to make adequate alternative plans. You don’t operate ~2500 daily flights and then not be able to “foresee” such gaps. Their arm twisting of the Indian regulators has succeeded, to the detriment of the passengers.
A quanto pare non siamo gli unici in Italia ad avere problemi di volo
Why didn’t they realise this at the planning stage of crew roster? I understand that Indigo publish a monthly roster of crew?
Are they cancelling long haul flights from Manchester to Mumbai please advice.
So scared and worried because it’s not far on the passengers.
Can I cancel for free
Oh my, Indigo is a great plane, isn’t it? It’s a great plane. What made you do this?
This was not only bad planning by Indigo. This also happened due to hubris and a contempt for rules and the travelling public. Indigo had ample time to streamline operations, find more crew if they were planning more routes and train them. Nearly 2 years. Yet the Board and the CEO failed to address this issue. It is also a lesson for the corporate world that pay fat salaries to the executives for their incompetence!