Air India has asked the Ministry of Civil Aviation for emergency approval to mount up to 275 additional domestic and international services through the remainder of December 2025. The request comes just days after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation ordered market-leader IndiGo to trim 10 percent of its published capacity in response to the carrier’s continuing crew-scheduling meltdown, which has led to more than 4,500 flight cancellations since 12 December. Air India says the incremental flights—sprinkled across the Delhi-Mumbai trunk, high-yield metros such as Bengaluru and Hyderabad, and selected Gulf and Southeast-Asian routes—will plug looming seat shortages during India’s peak Christmas–New-Year travel window.
According to officials familiar with the proposal, the flag-carrier is also pushing the ministry to publish a transparent, medium-term “capacity re-allocation grid” so that airlines can plan crew, slots and aircraft positioning beyond the current crisis. Aviation analysts note that more than 1,900 IndiGo pairs are potentially up for redistribution; if even half are reassigned to Air India or its low-cost arm AI Express, the Tata-owned group could lift its domestic market share by 3-4 percentage points almost overnight.
![Air India Seeks to Add 275 Flights in December After IndiGo Capacity Cuts]()
While extra seats help, many travellers will also need updated visas to take advantage of the new Gulf and Southeast-Asian flights. VisaHQ’s India portal (https://www.visahq.com/india/) can fast-track those applications, offering corporate travel desks and individual flyers a single window for document uploads, embassy appointments and real-time status alerts—ensuring paperwork never becomes the choke point when capacity finally opens up.
From a corporate-mobility perspective, the extra flights will be a critical safety valve for business travellers who have struggled to find last-minute inventory or have faced fare spikes above 40 percent on affected routes. Travel-management companies (TMCs) told ETTravelWorld that bulk-fare allotments for enterprise accounts on Delhi–Bengaluru and Mumbai–Hyderabad had already sold out for the last two weeks of December. If Air India’s plan is cleared this week, new inventory could appear in global distribution systems within 48 hours, stabilising prices and itineraries for corporate road-warriors.
The ministry is expected to rule on the stop-gap flights early next week while a broader consultation begins with AI Express, Akasa Air and SpiceJet. Industry observers add that the episode may accelerate the government’s long-pending “capacity stress-test” policy, which would require airlines to prove crew-rostering resilience before filing ambitious new schedules. Whether that becomes a permanent fixture or a one-off fix, the 275-flight proposal underscores how fragile India’s aviation ecosystem remains at the height of the travel season.
According to officials familiar with the proposal, the flag-carrier is also pushing the ministry to publish a transparent, medium-term “capacity re-allocation grid” so that airlines can plan crew, slots and aircraft positioning beyond the current crisis. Aviation analysts note that more than 1,900 IndiGo pairs are potentially up for redistribution; if even half are reassigned to Air India or its low-cost arm AI Express, the Tata-owned group could lift its domestic market share by 3-4 percentage points almost overnight.
While extra seats help, many travellers will also need updated visas to take advantage of the new Gulf and Southeast-Asian flights. VisaHQ’s India portal (https://www.visahq.com/india/) can fast-track those applications, offering corporate travel desks and individual flyers a single window for document uploads, embassy appointments and real-time status alerts—ensuring paperwork never becomes the choke point when capacity finally opens up.
From a corporate-mobility perspective, the extra flights will be a critical safety valve for business travellers who have struggled to find last-minute inventory or have faced fare spikes above 40 percent on affected routes. Travel-management companies (TMCs) told ETTravelWorld that bulk-fare allotments for enterprise accounts on Delhi–Bengaluru and Mumbai–Hyderabad had already sold out for the last two weeks of December. If Air India’s plan is cleared this week, new inventory could appear in global distribution systems within 48 hours, stabilising prices and itineraries for corporate road-warriors.
The ministry is expected to rule on the stop-gap flights early next week while a broader consultation begins with AI Express, Akasa Air and SpiceJet. Industry observers add that the episode may accelerate the government’s long-pending “capacity stress-test” policy, which would require airlines to prove crew-rostering resilience before filing ambitious new schedules. Whether that becomes a permanent fixture or a one-off fix, the 275-flight proposal underscores how fragile India’s aviation ecosystem remains at the height of the travel season.
