The worst operational crisis has hit IndiGo, India's largest domestic carrier, resulting in a huge wave of flight cancellations and delays that have turned the peak holiday season into a nightmare for thousands of travellers nationwide.

Dominating almost two-thirds of the domestic market, air travel has been crippled by this disruption, sparking outrage and prompting urgent regulatory intervention.

The Scale of the Crisis

Operational stability declined, and the airline experienced an unprecedented number of service disruptions over the past week.

Mass Cancellations: At its peak, the airline was forced to cancel over 1,000 flights in a single day, with the total number of affected services—delays and cancellations combined—reaching into the thousands over several days.
Chaos at major hubs: Major metro airports such as Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, among others, were transformed into scenes of chaos as stranded passengers were made to wait for over 12 to 24 hours. On-time performance of the airline nosedived, in some instances sliding even to a single-digit percentage.
Travel Impact: The general timing of this crisis was the peak month of travel, due to the December holiday/wedding season. It left many families stranded, missed business meetings, and put crucial personal events on hold.

pic.twitter.com/qcltUsaX8J
— IndiGo (@IndiGo6E) December 7, 2025

The root cause: New pilot duty rules and poor planning.

The leading cause of the meltdown has been cited as a failure to adapt to more stringent regulatory requirements, coupled with what critics term "lean manpower planning" for years.

1. The FDTL Shockwave

The crisis had been largely triggered by the implementation of the revised Flight Duty Time Limitations norms in full by the DGCA from November 1. The norms were aimed at improving pilot and crew safety by increasing rest periods:

Increased Rest: Mandatory weekly rest periods were increased from 36 to 48 hours.
Night Duty Limits: The number of allowable night landings for a crew operating during late hours was drastically reduced.
The Failure: While all airlines were subject to these rules, critics, including the Federation of Indian Pilots, believe IndiGo was uniquely unprepared. The airline's traditional low-cost model-which rested on maximal crew utilisation with a minimum of staffing buffers-was instantly shattered by the new restrictions. Its alleged failure to hire and train adequate personnel in anticipation of the FDTL changes created an immediate, impossible-to-manage pilot shortage.

2. Compounding Factors

A combination of other operational pressures further exacerbated the situation:

Winter Schedule Pressure: The disruptions happened during the peak winter travel season, and when flight schedules are realigned.

Technical Glitches and Congestion: The technical issues and mishaps in ground handling at northern airports, with operational constraints, added to the cascading delays.

The Nightmare of the Traveler

For the passenger, the IndiGo crisis represented a complete breakdown of reliable air travel.

Soaring Airfares: With IndiGo's reduction in capacity, the seat supply shrank across airlines and air fares shot up unrealistically. One-way tickets to popular routes briefly shot up, touching stratospheric prices, with some reports even quoting fares of ₹80,000 to ₹90,000 for the short domestic routes.
Stranded and Uninformed: passengers complained bitterly about receiving last-minute cancellation alerts, sometimes only when they reached the airport. Many were left stranded with minimal communication, poor staff support, and interminable queues for rebooking or refunds.
Baggage mishandling: Many passengers experienced trauma when they reached their destination only to find that their luggage had been separated from them, or was lost in the airport chaos concomitant source of financial and emotional distress.

Regulatory Intervention and Recovery

Large-scale public outcry and national disruption to travel meant the government and the DGCA had to intervene quickly.

Fare Caps: The Ministry of Civil Aviation put temporary price caps on airfares of the affected routes to prevent predatory pricing by other carriers.

Refund Orders: The DGCA ordered IndiGo to finish the ticket refund process of the cancelled flights within the stipulated 24-hour period.

Temporary DGCA Relief: In an unprecedented move to alleviate the emergency, the DGCA gave IndiGo a temporary and partial exemption from some of the more stringent FDTL provisions up to February 2026, thereby giving a window to the airline for restabilising its roster.

IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers apologised for the "severe inconvenience" and said the airline was making "calibrated adjustments" to its schedules to bring back stability.

The airline has reported progress in stabilising operations as cancellations fall, but the episode is nothing short of a stark lesson in how fragile a system built on ultra-lean operations is, and the non-negotiable importance of buffers for safety and staffing.

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