Over 300 IndiGo flights cancelled, total chaos continues at airports

IndiGo scrapped more than 300 flights across three of India’s busiest airports on Thursday, the latest sign of an airline buckling under an acute crew crunch triggered by newly implemented flight-duty and rest-period norms.The on-time performance (OTP) of IndiGo, India’s largest airline, dropped to 19.7% on Wednesday from 35% a day earlier, according to civil aviation ministry data.

Huge chaos at IGI T2 on Thursday noon. Indigo airlines not able to convince passengers. Indigo flights are late by 2-4 hrs. pic.twitter.com/oHgwUaqiKN

— newsinc24 (@newsinc24) December 4, 2025

Mumbai bore the brunt of the disruption, with 86 cancellations — 41 arrivals and 45 departures — while Bengaluru saw 73 flights grounded, including 41 incoming services. Delhi airport, too, witnessed 33 cancellations, with the tally expected to rise by day’s end as cascading delays continued to ripple through the system. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data showed the airline had been under strain, having cancelled 1,232 flights in November—755 of them attributed to FDTL issues—with OTP dropping to 67.70% from 84.1% in October. New FDTL norms were implemented in two phases on July 1 and November 1. The rules have been designed to combat fatigue and boost rest periods. They mandated an increase of weekly rest periods to 48 hours, extension of night hours, and limited the number of night landings to two, down from six earlier.

Meanwhile, IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers has acknowledged that the carrier failed to live up to its promise of providing a good experience to its customers. In a letter to IndiGo employees on Thursday, Elbers said the airline has apologised for the delays and cancellations, and emphasised that several factors caused a cascading effect, leading to a severe impact on operations. "These past few days have been difficult for many of our IndiGo customers and colleagues. We serve close to 380,000 customers a day and want each of them to have a good experience. We could not live up to that promise these past days and we have publicly apologised for that," Elbers wrote.