Civil Aviation Ministry, DGCA review IndiGo flight disruptions as airline warns of more cancellations

New Delhi: The network-level operational disruptions and cancellations of IndiGo flights were reviewed by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) with their senior officials and IndiGo management. Notably, MoCA is closely monitoring the situation.

Additionally, Union Minister of Civil Aviation, Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, held a meeting with senior officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and directed all airport directors to continuously monitor the situation and provide all possible assistance to stranded passengers. He has also directed DGCA to strictly monitor airfares during flight disruptions/cancellations.

The DGCA today held a detailed review meeting with the senior leadership of IndiGo, chaired by the Director General (Civil Aviation). The IndiGo network is facing significant operational disruptions from the end of November 2025. The number of flight cancellations at IndiGo has risen sharply to around 170–200 per day, much higher than normal.

IndiGo presented cancellation figures and cited preliminary reasons, including transition challenges in implementing the revised Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) CAR, crew-planning issues and winter operational constraints. The revised FDTL norms were implemented in two phases—July 1, 2025 and November 1, 2025—as directed by the court, with the aim of strengthening fatigue management and enhancing flight safety. DGCA has directed IndiGo to normalise operations at the earliest and also ensure that fares are not increased.

Also, it has instructed IndiGo to submit a comprehensive roadmap linking projected crew recruitment with its planned aircraft induction, a revised plan for crew training, roster restructuring, safety-risk assessments and mitigation, ensuring immediate and full compliance with FDTL norms, a mitigation plan detailing urgent steps to reduce cancellations and stabilise flight operations, progress reports every fortnight for next several weeks on improvements in operations, crew availability and roster stability. Moreover, it has been asked to submit a proposal outlining any temporary FDTL relaxations required to restore normalcy, which DGCA will assess.

IndiGo has reportedly informed DGCA that it would need a short transition period to solve the problem, and there will be more cancellations over the next two to three days as part of its schedule-reset effort to restore roster balance and prevent such disruptions. Also, it will bring down flight operations from December 8 to minimise passenger inconvenience and allow crew-planning teams to rebuild buffers eroded over recent weeks. It is solving the problems and will restore full operational stability by February 10, 2026.