IndiGo will continue to face a 10% reduction in its flights, amounting to nearly 200 fewer services, until the end of the winter season in late March 2026, according to government officials.

The airline has informed the government that it expects to be able to implement the revised pilot norms from February 10, when the special exemption granted to it for rules that came into effect on November 1, 2025, expires. The relaxation was granted after the airline saw over 5,000 flight cancellations in November and early December 2025 due to planning gaps and overstretching of its crew, for which the Directorate General of Civil Aviation imposed a ₹22 crore penalty last week.

The airline currently has 2,400 captains against a requirement of 2,280, and 2,240 first officers compared with the 2,050 needed to operate the nearly 1,900 flights it has been flying since the government imposed a 10% cut on December 8, it informed the aviation safety regulator. The winter schedule runs from October 26, 2025, to March 28, 2026. A decision on the number of flights permitted to airlines for the summer schedule is yet to be taken.

“The DGCA continues to closely monitor the airline’s operations, with particular emphasis on roster integrity, crew availability, buffer adequacy, system robustness, and adherence to Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) requirements,” a DGCA statement said.

IndiGo cancelled as many as 4,280 flights in the first nine days of December. There were 900 flight cancellations during November as well. Between November and December 7, 2025, as many as 9.5 lakh passengers were affected due to cancellations. As a result, the airline issued refunds totalling ₹827 crore until December 7.

A DGCA inquiry found that the cancellations were due to an “overriding focus on maximising utilisation of crew, aircraft, and network resources, which significantly reduced roster buffer margins. Crew rosters were designed to maximise duty periods.” Other factors included deficiencies in system software support and shortcomings in management structure and operational control on the part of the airline.

The planned cut of 400 to 500 flights by IndiGo, India’s dominant carrier handling six in 10 air travellers, will shrink passenger options during peak season and spike airfares, with competitors lacking spare aircraft to fill the void.

The last available monthly figures on the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) website for October show that IndiGo ferried 91.96 lakh passengers or 65% of the total 1.4 crore fliers. Extrapolated to daily figures, this works out to 2.96 lakh passengers per day in a month that witnessed a festive rush due to Dasara and Deepavali.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations — assuming a seat capacity of 180 per A320 aircraft, of which 90% were possibly sold — indicate that reducing daily flights from 400 to 500 would affect 65,000 to 81,000 daily passengers, who had probably booked their seats weeks in advance.

“In the middle of the high season for travel, just before the Christmas-New Year break, it is unfortunate that we have a situation where there will be a capacity shortfall on demand, resulting in a further increase in airfares,” Aloke Bajpai, founder and chief executive officer of travel booking portal ixigo, told The Hindu.

He said other airlines would not find it easy to bridge the shortfall quickly. “We are already seeing signs of passengers switching back to train and bus as modes of travel, given how high the domestic airfares are getting,” he added.

As the dominant player, IndiGo is also the sole operator on 20 to 25 of the nearly 96 domestic destinations it serves. These include Allahabad, Kanpur, Bareilly, and Purnea, where travellers will have no alternative but to book a train or travel by bus, industry insiders explained.

In its order directing the airline to cut flights by 10%, the DGCA has mandated reductions on high-frequency routes and those where IndiGo is the sole operator to boost competition and passenger choice. But rival airlines such as Air India Group, Akasa, and SpiceJet are themselves facing aircraft shortages due to post-COVID supply chain delays, making it unprofitable to shift capacity from trunk routes to smaller destinations during peak season.

Booking close to the departure date is becoming more expensive despite government-imposed fare caps, ranging from ₹7,500 for a 500-km flight to ₹18,000 for distances over 1,500 km, as shrinking availability drives up fares 15 days before travel.

Inadequate norms

While IndiGo will refund cancelled tickets, taxes and fees paid to the Central Industrial Security Force and airports remain non-refundable. Indian compensation norms are woefully inadequate and don’t cover additional costs incurred for new tickets at higher prices and hotel stays. Nor do they account for the hardship caused to passengers.

While the airline has stated that it has released ₹829 crore in refunds, there is no mention of compensation to passengers affected by cancellations. According to the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s passenger rights charter, passengers are entitled to compensation only for flight cancellations, not for delays. This sum varies from ₹5,000 for an hour-long flight to ₹10,000 for a flight lasting more than two hours. In case of loss, delay or damage to baggage, passengers are entitled to compensation of ₹20,000 each. However, the penalty is rarely invoked.

Under the European Union (EU) Regulation 261, in cases of denied boarding, delays of over three hours, and cancellations, passengers are entitled to automatic compensation of €250 to €600 (₹26,000 to ₹62,400). The amount depends on the flight distance and the delay. For delayed, damaged, or missing baggage, the compensation is €1,300 or ₹1,35,000.