India’s largest airline suffered its worst operational meltdown in years this week, scrapping more than 300 flights between 2 and 4 December and delaying hundreds more. On Thursday alone, at least 175 services were cancelled, leaving thousands of travellers stranded in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune and Bengaluru.
The crisis has two immediate triggers: Phase 2 of India’s revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL), which from 1 November increased mandatory weekly pilot rest to 48 hours and slashed allowable night landings, and an urgent software patch on the Airbus A320 fleet ordered after a U.S. incident. Rivals Air India and SpiceJet absorbed the regulatory change by adjusting schedules weeks in advance; IndiGo mis-judged crew requirements and now faces an acute pilot shortage.
![IndiGo cancels 175+ flights in single day as new pilot-rest rules bite, DGCA steps in]()
After a tense meeting on 4 December, the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) directed IndiGo to submit a recovery roadmap, fortnightly crew-hiring updates and a guarantee not to raise fares while service stabilises. The carrier told regulators it aims to restore full operations by 10 February 2026 and has asked for temporary relief from some night-flying limits.
For business travellers the immediate impact is missed connections—both domestic and international—at India’s hub airports. Corporate travel managers report same-day economy fares on competitor airlines spiking 40 % as seat capacity tightens. Multinationals are revisiting travel-approval workflows and looking at rail or hybrid meeting options until reliability returns.
The episode is a case study in how labour-safety regulation can ripple through mobility programmes if contingency plans are weak. Companies with critical intra-India travel should build alternative route matrices and monitor DGCA bulletins through the first quarter of 2026.
The crisis has two immediate triggers: Phase 2 of India’s revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL), which from 1 November increased mandatory weekly pilot rest to 48 hours and slashed allowable night landings, and an urgent software patch on the Airbus A320 fleet ordered after a U.S. incident. Rivals Air India and SpiceJet absorbed the regulatory change by adjusting schedules weeks in advance; IndiGo mis-judged crew requirements and now faces an acute pilot shortage.
After a tense meeting on 4 December, the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) directed IndiGo to submit a recovery roadmap, fortnightly crew-hiring updates and a guarantee not to raise fares while service stabilises. The carrier told regulators it aims to restore full operations by 10 February 2026 and has asked for temporary relief from some night-flying limits.
For business travellers the immediate impact is missed connections—both domestic and international—at India’s hub airports. Corporate travel managers report same-day economy fares on competitor airlines spiking 40 % as seat capacity tightens. Multinationals are revisiting travel-approval workflows and looking at rail or hybrid meeting options until reliability returns.
The episode is a case study in how labour-safety regulation can ripple through mobility programmes if contingency plans are weak. Companies with critical intra-India travel should build alternative route matrices and monitor DGCA bulletins through the first quarter of 2026.
