IndiGo’s pilot-planning missteps trigger unprecedented week-long flight meltdown

Regulatory changes to pilot duty-time limits, combined with tight staffing & an aggressive winter schedule, exposed deep cracks in IndiGo’s crew planning

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NEW DELHI: IndiGo, long seen as India’s benchmark for punctuality and operational scale, has been hit by its most severe disruption to date, cancelling hundreds of flights nationwide for nearly a week.

The crisis stems from a miscalculation of pilot requirements under revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) and “lean-staffing” model that left the airline with no buffer when tighter rest rules collided with an aggressive winter schedule. For six consecutive days, India’s largest airline has cancelled large portions of its network—over 650 flights on Sunday alone, out of roughly 2,300 daily—throwing travel plans into chaos. With IndiGo controlling over 65 per cent of the domestic market, the cancellations triggered a nationwide ripple effect.

‘Terminals in major hubs such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad saw overcrowding, long queues, angry passengers, and thousands of pieces of unclaimed baggage. Rival airlines, already running near capacity, could not absorb the sudden surge in demand.