IndiGo flight cut doubled to 10%; airline may operate even lesser flights

NEW DELHI: There will be a lot less domestic flights this winter as an under fire aviation ministry Tuesday evening decided to slash IndiGo’s schedule by 10% — doubling it from the 5% cut ordered earlier that day. The airline operated over 2,200 daily flights and this cut translates into about 216 less flights. But in reality IndiGo may actually operate an even lesser number of flights at about 1,800-1,900 — meaning about 500 daily cancelations — to keep operations stabilised, say sources.

“The ministry considers it necessary to curtail the overall IndiGo routes, which will help in stabilising the airline’s operations and lead to reduced cancellations. A curtailment of 10% has been ordered. While abiding with it, Indigo will continue to cover all its destinations as before,” Union aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said on X Tuesday evening.

Also read | 'IndiGo back on its feet': CEO says operations now stable; airline focusing on what led to crisis


IndiGo “CEO Pieter Elbers was summoned to the ministry (Tuesday) to provide an update…. last week, many passengers faced severe inconvenience due to IndiGo’s internal mismanagement of crew rosters, flight schedules and inadequate communication…. inquiry and necessary actions are underway,” Naidu added.

Earlier in the day, the DGCA’s 5% cut order had stated the airline has “not demonstrated an ability to operate” the its previously approved winter schedule of 15,014 weekly departures “efficiently”. The airline was directed to reduce operations “across sectors, especially on high-demand, high-frequency flights, and to avoid single-flight operations on a sector by IndiGo.”

Also read | 5% cut: Government finally aligns IndiGo flights with airline's operating ability
The airline has to submit a revised schedule by 5 pm on Wednesday. IndiGo’s summer schedule was for operating 14,158 weekly domestic flights which was increased 6% in the winter schedule starting Oct 26. This translated into the airline having an approval to operate 64,346 domestic flights in Nov. “As per operational data submitted by IndiGo, it (actually operated) 59,438 flights during Nov 2025, with 951 flight cancellations recorded during the month,” the DGCA notice issued to the airline about flight cuts on Monday night says.

The regulator had increased IndiGo’s winter flights based on an estimated higher aircraft availability at 403 against 351 this summer. “However, it has been observed that the airline could operate only 339 aircraft in Oct 2025 and 344 aircraft in Nov 2025… IndiGo increased its departures by 9.66% in comparison to winter schedule 2024 and by 6% in relation to summer schedule 2025. However, the airline has not demonstrated an ability to operate these schedules efficiently,” the DGCA notice says.

The problem essentially happened as the new flight duty time limitation (FDTL) that increased pilot requirement came into effect from Nov 1. On the one hand IndiGo did not gear up for that and on the other, its daily flights increased 6%. So November saw modest cancellations but the mismatch snowballed into a major crisis in the first week of Dec with hundreds of flights being cancelled daily.

Air India and AI Express, on the other hand, saw their weekly domestic schedule being reduced by 0.8% and 6%, respectively from summer to winter schedule. India's second biggest airline group saw its weekly summer domestic flights 7,685 reduce to overall by 3% to 7,448 in winter. Akasa also saw its weekly winter domestic schedule reduce by 5.7% from 1,089 to 1,027. SpiceJet, which is ramping up operations, saw an increase of over 26% with the number increasing from 1,240 to 1,568.

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Now questions are being asked of aviation authorities why did they permit IndiGo more flights without checking its crew availability under the new FDTL requirement.

On its part, IndiGo has attributed the disruption to a “compounding effect of multiple factors which coincided in lesser or greater measure” in an “unfortunate and unforeseeable confluence.” These are: Minor technical glitches; schedule changes linked to the start of the winter season; adverse weather conditions increased congestion in the aviation system, andiImplementation of and operation under the updated crew rostering rules (FDTL phase II) that came into force on Nov 1, 2025.
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