Domestic carrier IndiGo has processed refunds to all passengers affected by flight cancellations between December 3 and 5, aviation safety regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said on Friday (January 16, 2026).

“DGCA is constantly engaging with domestic carrier IndiGo with respect to refunds and compensations provided to the affected passengers due to operational disruptions from December 3-5,” it said.

“IndiGo informed that all refunds for IndiGo flight cancellations during the period of December 3 to December 5 have been fully processed and cleared to the original source of payment,” DGCA said in a statement.

Further, as an additional measure to support affected passengers, the airline has extended a “gesture of care under which two travel vouchers of ₹5,000 each are being provided with a validity of 12 months”.

Passengers are entitled to compensation as per DGCA regulations that relate to “facilities” that are to be provided to passengers by airlines due to “denied boarding, cancellation of flights and delays in flights”.

Meanwhile passengers’ complaints regarding non-receipt of refunds for “the hundreds of flights cancelled abruptly between December 2-9 by the airline continue pouring in on the social media.

On December 9, Union Civil Aviation Minister K. Rammohan Naidu had told Parliament that “IndiGo was ordered to issue refunds promptly and more than ₹750 crore has already reached passengers”.

Following the large-scale disruptions in IndiGo operations, aviation watchdog DGCA set up a four-member committee headed by Joint Director General Sanjay K. Brahmane to carry out a comprehensive review and assessment of the circumstances that led to the massive flight disruptions.

“We are not taking this situation easily. We are doing an inquiry. We will take very strict action not only for this situation but also as an example,” Union Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu had said in Rajya Sabha on December 8, 2025.

The panel submitted its report to the DGCA on December 27, 2025.

On December 30, 2025, while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an event in Bengaluru, he said, “The report has been submitted to the ministry. We are analysing the report, taking further comments from the DGCA, and we will follow up on the action on that.”

IndiGo’s On-Time Performance (OTP) plummeted to 8.5% on Thursday (December 4, 2025), with worsening operational disruptions impacting flight schedules.

The country’s largest airline, which generally operates around 2,300 domestic and international flights daily, is now cancelling flights as part of efforts to tackle disruptions, primarily triggered by crew woes.

The OTP, an indicator of an airline’s punctuality, plunged to 8.5% on Thursday, as per the latest data from the Civil Aviation Ministry.

The airline, which presents its punctuality as a hallmark, recorded an OTP of 19.7% on Wednesday, a steep fall from 35% reported on Tuesday.

On Thursday, the OTP of Air India and Air India Express were at 61% and 58.6%, respectively, while that of Akasa Air stood at 63%.

The readings for SpiceJet and state-owned Alliance Air were at 56.4% and 56%, respectively.

The OTP is calculated based on the performance of airlines at six major airports — Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

Shares of IndiGo, which is partly-owned by Bhatia, fell nearly 3% to ₹5,291.45 in the afternoon trade on the BSE on Friday.

Major airports across the country descended into turmoil as IndiGo’s flight delays and cancellations continued to mount for the fourth consecutive day. With several hundred flights either delayed or cancelled, passengers have been left scrambling. Even as the airline issued an apology to customers and stakeholders, saying it “remains focused on streamlining its operations at the earliest,” over 400 IndiGo flights were reportedly cancelled on Friday (December 5, 2025) across several airports. On Thursday, the airline’s on-time performance at six metro airports dropped to 8.5%.  

What is causing the flight delays/cancellations?

Issuing several statements over the past few days, IndiGo has blamed several factors for the mass delays and cancellations. On Wednesday, the airline said “minor technology glitches, schedule changes linked to the winter season, adverse weather conditions, increased congestion in the aviation system and the implementation of updated crew rostering rules (FDTL) had a negative compounding impact on our operations in a way that was not feasible to be anticipated.”

Stranded passengers search for their luggage near a counter after IndiGo cancelled more than 400 flights, at the Kempegowda International Airport, in Bengaluru, Karnataka, on December 5, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
PTI

This crisis though, was weeks in the making. As reported by The Hindu earlier, the airline’s skewed pilot planning and rostering, triggered by the full implementation of the stricter rest and duty norms from November 1, has led to ongoing travel chaos.

The new norms for pilot rest and duty hours — Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) — framed to combat concerns over mounting fatigue, against which airlines waged a two-year-long battle, were to be implemented in two phases as per a Delhi High Court order in April 2025. While a large number of provisions, including raising of weekly rest hours from 36 to 48 hours, were rolled out from July 1, the remaining provisions restricting the utilisation of pilots during night hours were to be implemented from November 1. The government had allowed airlines this additional time to help plan their crew requirement as they had warned of widespread flight cancellations.

“It is since the implementation of the latter that the airline has been grappling with shortages and making requests to pilots to cancel their leaves. But a brewing unrest for past many years means pilots are in no mood to co-operate. Being pushed to the upper limit of 13 hours of duty period allowed under DGCA norms, no salary hikes despite profits to the tune of ₹7,000 crore being posted by the airline, combined with the latest furore over the airline twisting the meaning of the new norms on pilot duty hours to its advantage. had angered them deeply,” The Hindu’s Jagriti Chandra had reported.

In a meeting with Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu and Faiz Kidwai, head of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), top IndiGo officials on Thursday (December 4), blamed “misjudgement and planning gaps” for the current situation. Further in a letter to his employees, IndiGo’s CEO Pieter Elbers explained that “given the size, scale and complexity of our network, these disruptions grow large immediately and require interventions on multiple levels”, which was being done.

When will normal operations resume?

The airline on Thursday had informed Civil Aviation Minister, and the DGCA Chief that it would curtail flights from December 8 to minimise flight disruptions, and delays and cancellations will continue for the next two to three days.

IndiGo has also sought exemption from implementing the norms on reduced night flying hours until February 10. The regulator has said it will review this demand from the airline. 

A mounting pilot shortage at IndiGo is resulting in flight cancellations and large number of delays by upto seven hours which is exacerbated on Wednesday (December 3, 2025) by some cabin crew no shows in Mumbai. 

The pilot shortage is triggered by the full implementation of the stricter rest and duty norms for them effective November 1.

Over the past few weeks, airline’s operations team have reached out to pilots to return early from their sick leaves and asked others to give up their privilege leave.

Government data showed that only 35% of the airline’s flights were on time on December 2, and 49.5% were on time on December 1. 

To make matters worse, no show by some crew on Wednesday delayed several flights,including the Mumbai-Maldives service.

In Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport, several IndiGo flights have been cancelled for the second consecutive day.

As many as 19 IndiGo flights, both arrivals and departures, were cancelled in Hyderabad.

Pilots are reportedly furious over airlines trying to misinterpret the new rest and duty norms to overcome the shortage. The matter was also taken up by pilot body Airlines Pilot Association (ALPA) during a meeting with the Director General at DGCA last week.

Indigo, in a media statement, attributed the cancellations to “various reasons, including technology issues, airport congestion, and operational requirements.” Our teams are working diligently to ensure that operations normalise as soon as possible, the airline’s statement said.