IndiGo’s December chaos is unfolding—and passengers are paying the price

IndiGo—India’s largest carrier and operator of nearly 57% of all winter departures—has entered one of its worst operational stretches since going public in 2015. The airline was founded in 2006.

A mix of pilot shortages, a surge in leave requests, and what the airline itself calls planning gaps in implementing India’s new flight duty time limitations (FDTL) rules has led to hundreds of cancellations, a collapse in on-time performance, and a decision to scale back flights from 8 December. The resulting drop in capacity has already pushed fares up sharply, with analysts warning of broad-based increases through January.

“We confirm that all IndiGo domestic flights departing from Delhi Airport (DEL) on Dec 5, 2025 stand cancelled till 11:59PM. We express our profound apologies to all our valued customers and stakeholders who have been significantly impacted by these unforeseen events,” the airline said in a statement on Friday.

“The reduction in the number of flights is expected to push up airfares across India by at least 5%,” said Gagan Dixit, senior vice president oil & gas and aviation, Elara Securities. He added that on heavy traffic routes like Mumbai-Bengaluru, 10-day advance bookings for some flights have “already jumped 40-100% in the past few days,” and that fares on routes where IndiGo holds a monopoly, about 30% of its domestic capacity, could rise even more.

Aviation expert Sanjay Lazar echoed the view, noting that the sudden reduction in flights will squeeze capacity in a system where many bookings have already been made.

“Demand will remain, but supply will fall so fares will inevitably go up,” said Lazar. He said IndiGo expanded its winter schedule from around 114,158 flights to over 115,014, adding 900 flights, but the reversal now puts upward pressure on fares.

“Once you scale back, the demand stays but supply drops. Automatically fares will rise. The extent of the increase will depend on which routes see cancellations,” he said, estimating a 5-8% rise.

Lazar said disruptions over the past three days have already pushed up fares and will likely keep them elevated through January’s peak season. “Metro to metro will be high as it is. Non-metro also will be impacted. Across the board it will impact. This has had a very deleterious effect on all aviation markets in India,” he added.

According to a statement issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Thursday, the airline has told the regulator that planning gaps contributed to its ongoing disruptions, and it has committed to implementing corrective measures, with full operational stabilization targeted by 10 February 2026.

Between 1 and 4 December, IndiGo’s share price fell 6.2% and was down as much as 2.8% today as of 12:17pm.

The operational breakdown

IndiGo’s network came under severe stress from 1 December as a growing pilot shortage and an uptick in crew leave requests caused delays of several hours and crippled operations across major hubs including Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai.

The DGCA statement said that the airline has been experiencing “a sharp rise in cancellations, reaching approximately 170-200 flights per day, which is substantially higher than normal.” This implies close to 800 cancellations during 1-4 December.

On-time performance, which stood at 85% in October, collapsed to 19.7% on 3 December and 8.5% today. IndiGo has acknowledged that disruptions were caused by “mis-judgment and planning gaps” in implementing phase 2 of the FDTL CAR—new duty-time rules aimed at preventing pilot fatigue.

More cancellations are expected over the next 2–3 days as IndiGo works to stabilize schedules.

Separately, GMR, operator of Delhi airport, posted on X that all IndiGo domestic departures were cancelled till midnight. Chennai International Airport also reported 20 cancelled IndiGo departures and 11 cancelled arrivals, mostly involving Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

Capacity stress in the winter schedule

IndiGo’s winter schedule consists of 15,014 weekly departures, a 10% rise over the previous year. The carrier accounts for nearly 57% of total departures cleared by the DGCA for the period 26 October to 28 March. On average, the airline operates around 2,200 domestic departures per day.

In this schedule, IndiGo had announced new flights aimed at improving connectivity to east and northeast India.

According to Mark D Martin of Martin Consulting, IndiGo’s network strength means cancellations will hit travellers broadly. He said passengers may shift to competing airlines on routes where IndiGo does not have near-monopoly power.

“There could be some impact on ticket prices, immediately and in the short term. But, in general the civil aviation regulator steps in allowing competing airlines higher utilisation of their aircraft to tide of such situation. However, considering IndiGo’s network and reach, the impact will be severe.”