IndiGo requests relief, no solace for travellers

India’s biggest airline IndiGo cancelled over 400 flights on Thursday — the third consecutive day of chaos — as the carrier admitted to aviation regulators that its operational meltdown stemmed from "misjudgment and planning gaps" in adapting to crew fatigue rules it had two years to prepare for.

- Neha LM Tripathi

Trolleys of IndiGo passengers after their flights were cancelled, at the Pune airport on Thursday.

(REUTERS)

The low-cost giant, which commands 60% of India's domestic market, has now cancelled more than 600 flights since Tuesday, stranding tens of thousands of passengers and laying bare the fragility of a business model predicated on relentless cost optimisation with minimal operational buffers. The crisis has also exposed the lack of choice for passengers in India’s aviation sector that now is largely a duopoly between IndiGo and Air India, with the embattled low-cost carrier being the only option in many sectors.

The airline issued an apology for the second time in two days on Thursday. IndiGo has now asked the regulator for relief from the provisions limiting pilot duty hours at night — the very rules it struggled to adapt to — and said full restoration of operations would take until February 10, 2026, more than two months away. The airline warned that more cancellations would continue for the next two to three days as part of schedule stabilisation efforts, with flight reductions beginning December 8. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) did not say whether it accepted the request.

“The disruptions have arisen primarily from misjudgment and planning gaps in implementing Phase 2 of the (Flight Duty Time Limitations), with the airline accepting that the actual crew requirement exceeded their anticipation," DGCA said in a statement late Thursday after IndiGo representatives briefed the regulator.