Government Orders IndiGo to Curtail Flight Schedule by 10%, Double of What the Regulator DGCA had Ordered

The government on 9^th March 2025, ordered IndiGo to reduce its schedule by at least 10 per cent, doubling the curtailment from 5 per cent that the aviation watchdog (DGCA) had ordered following network-wide disruptions at the country’s largest airline, which led to scores of daily flight cancellations since the middle of last week. The Ministry of Civil Aviation communicated the decision in a meeting with IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers.

IndiGo is India’s largest airline, with a domestic market share of nearly 65 per cent, and its schedule includes over 2,300 daily flights, around 2,150 of which are domestic. A 10% curtailment in domestic flights would mean that the airline’s daily scheduled domestic flights would come down to fewer than 1,950. According to sources, the freed-up slots may be offered to other carriers if they have additional capacity to deploy.

“The Ministry considers it necessary to curtail the overall Indigo routes, which will help in stabilizing the airline’s operations and lead to reduced cancellations. A 10% curtailment has been ordered. While abiding with it, Indigo will continue to cover all its destinations as before,” Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said Tuesday in a post on X. Naidu said that Elbers was “summoned” to the ministry to provide an update on the airline’s stabilization measures.

“During the last week, many passengers faced severe inconvenience due to Indigo’s internal mismanagement of crew rosters, flight schedules and inadequate communication. While the enquiry and necessary actions are underway, another meeting with Indigo’s top management was held to review the stabilization measures. CEO Pieter Elbers was summoned to the Ministry to provide an update. He confirmed that 100% of the refunds for flights affected till 6th December have been completed. A strict instruction to accelerate the completion of the remaining refunds and baggage handover was given,” Naidu said.

In a statement, earlier today, IndiGo announced that its operations have stabilized and normalized. IndiGo operated over 1,800 flights on Tuesday, operating to all destinations on its network, and its on-time performance is back at over 80 per cent. The airline expects to operate around 1,900 flights on Wednesday. Sources close to the airline said that IndiGo was looking to gradually increase its flights to its regular levels over the next few days. But it will now have to abide by the government-ordered schedule curtailment.

“IndiGo can confirm that after days of significant and steady improvement across the network, we have reinstated our operations across our network. This means all flights published on our website are scheduled to operate with an adjusted network. Also, nearly all bags that were stuck at airports have been delivered to our customers, and the teams are working on delivering the remaining at the earliest,” IndiGo said in a statement before the MoCA’s 10% schedule curtailment decision was announced.

Earlier, the DGCA had ordered a 5% curtailment of IndiGo’s flight schedule, or around 110-115 daily flights, especially on high-demand and high-frequency routes. The regulator directed IndiGo to submit the revised and truncated schedule by 5 pm on December 10. A further rationalization of IndiGo’s flight schedule could be on the cards and will depend on IndiGo’s daily flight operations, sources indicated. Following the announcement from MoCA, the DGCA revised its order to IndiGo to reflect 10% curtailment.

The airline’s weekly domestic flights increased to 15,014 in the winter schedule, which took effect on October 26, from 14,158 in this year’s summer schedule. IndiGo, however, faced crew shortages, primarily due to its inadequate preparation for the second phase of the new crew rest and duty norms that took effect on November 1. This led to widespread network-wide disruption in the airline’s operations. In view of the disruption, which brought India’s aviation ecosystem to its knees, pilot associations and aviation experts strongly criticized and questioned the DGCA’s earlier decision to allow an increase in flights in the airline’s winter schedule.

The new Flight Duty Time Limitation rules stipulate more rest for pilots and the rationalization of their flying duties, particularly late-night operations, in a bid to better manage pilot fatigue, a key risk to aviation safety. These new norms, which were stipulated in January last year, were delayed in implementation and took effect in two phases, on July 1 and November 1, with the second phase rollout hitting IndiGo particularly hard. The new norms meant that airlines either had to hire more pilots to maintain their schedules or curtail them in line with the new requirements.

With the second phase of the new FDTL norms taking effect on November 1, IndiGo started feeling the heat with a higher-than-usual number of cancellations and flight delays throughout November. As delays compounded, with a few other external factors also at play, disruptions became widespread over the past few days. According to the DGCA, IndiGo informed the regulator that it had 1,232 flight cancellations in November, 755 of which were due to crew and FDTL-related constraints.

In review meetings, IndiGo also accepted that the disruptions “have arisen primarily from misjudgment and planning gaps in implementing” the second phase of the new FDTL rules, and that the actual crew requirement for the new rules exceeded what it had anticipated, as per the DGCA.

The massive disruption at IndiGo threw commercial flight operations out of gear all over the country. Given the scale of the disruption, the DGCA on Friday granted IndiGo a temporary one-time exemption from some night operations-related changes in the new FDTL norms for its Airbus A320 pilots. The temporary rollback, which will be in place till February 10, is likely to help IndiGo to get its act together and stabilize operations from hereon. The DGCA has also granted a few other temporary relaxations to IndiGo.

But the government and the regulator have turned up the heat on IndiGo by initiating a DGCA inquiry into the disruption. A show cause notice was also issued to the airline’s CEO, Pieter Elbers and its COO, Isidre Porqueras. Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu has blamed lapses on IndiGo’s part for the disruption and said that strict action will be taken based on the inquiry report to “set an example”. He said that sufficient notice was given by the DGCA to all airlines for the implementation of the new FDTL rules.

In an answer to the show-cause notices issued by the DGCA to IndiGo’s CEO, Pieter Elbers and chief operating officer Isidre Porqueras, the airline said that it is realistically not possible to identify the precise causes of the disruption at this stage because of the intricacy and vast scale of operations, and a comprehensive root cause analysis is being done. But it did share some preliminary contributing factors, whose combination led to the disruption.

“The airline suggests that the disruption resulted from a combination of the following factors, which coincided in lesser or greater measure:

1. Minor technical glitches.

2. Schedule changes linked to the start of the winter season.

3. Adverse weather conditions.

4. Increased congestion in the aviation system.

5.Implementation of and operation under the updated crew rostering rules,” the DGCA had said in a release.

“IndiGo notes they had been engaging with the DGCA regarding challenges in implementing the Flight Duty Time Limitations Phase II and were seeking variations, exemptions, or extensions. The disruptions began in early December when the compounding factors resulted in a lower On-Time Network Performance, which affected crew availability,” the regulator said, adding that it is in the process of examining IndiGo’s response and “appropriate action as deemed appropriate will be taken in due course”, the regulator had said.

Source: The Indian Express