IndiGo spreads out flight curtailment, most busy airports, routes unaffected

There is no curtailment in flights to and from the airline’s largest base Delhi, while just two flights—one departure and one arrival—at Mumbai have been reduced. In terms of route length, a sizable part of the curtailment exercise appears to be on relatively short-distance routes, like those within the same state or between cities in neighbouring states.

Table based on comparison of IndiGo’s December 29 domestic schedules filed three weeks apart
Another 72 routes have one flight less for the day
Source: Airline schedules from Cirium

The analysis is based on the changes in IndiGo’s operating schedules for a single day—Monday, December 29—filed three weeks apart. The December 29 schedule, as of the week ending December 21, had 130 fewer flights for the day as compared to the schedule for the same day filed early December, before the carrier was ordered to cut domestic flights following a massive operational disruption that led to thousands of flight cancellations over the course of a few days. There may be marginal variations in the schedule changes for other days, as the number of flights scheduled can fluctuate on different days, but only slightly.

Mapping IndiGo’s schedule curtailment

The analysis shows that just two routes have seen a reduction of five flights for the day. Four routes have had a frequency reduction of four flights, and another four have the count reduced by three flights. Two flights each have been cut on 12 routes, while another 72 now have one flight less for the day. The data also shows that one flight each has been added on four routes as part of the schedule rationalisation exercise.

To comply with the regulator’s directive while optimising operations on high-demand and high-potential routes, the airline appears to have based the schedule curtailment on factors like demand on the routes, route length, and network-wide crew availability and deployment, experts said.

IndiGo did not respond to a request for comment on the data and its schedule rationalisation exercise.

Only Chennai-Madurai and Madurai-Chennai routes (each direction in a city pair is classified as one route) have seen a reduction of five flights—three as per the revised schedule versus eight earlier. The routes with a reduction of four flights for the day include Ahmedabad-Bengaluru and Bengaluru-Ahmedabad, and Chennai-Tiruchirappalli and Tiruchirappalli-Chennai, with all the four routes now having two flights scheduled for the day against six earlier.

Four routes—Goa-Surat and Surat-Goa, and Chennai-Durgapur and Durgapur-Chennai—don’t have any IndiGo flight for the day as the lone IndiGo frequency on each of these has been cut. The airline, however, has added one flight each on four routes: Delhi-Nagpur and Nagpur-Delhi, and Delhi-Hyderabad and Hyderabad-Delhi.

Notably, the top six high-frequency routes for IndiGo—Delhi-Mumbai, Mumbai-Delhi, Delhi-Bengaluru, Bengaluru-Delhi, Mumbai-Bengaluru, and Bengaluru-Mumbai—have not been touched in the schedule rationalisation exercise, the analysis shows. IndiGo’ recently-filed schedule for December 29 showed no change in flight frequencies on these routes—20 flights each on Delhi-Mumbai and Mumbai-Delhi routes, 15 flights each on Delhi-Bengaluru and Bengaluru-Delhi routes, and 14 flights each on Mumbai-Bengaluru and Bengaluru-Mumbai routes.

In terms of the busiest airports in India, Bengaluru has seen the maximum flight reductions by IndiGo, with 52 flights—26 departures and 26 arrivals—being dropped for December 29, the Cirium data shows. Next in the list are Hyderabad with 34 flights dropped, Chennai with 32 fewer flights, and Kolkata and Ahmedabad with 22 flights being dropped at each. The country’s biggest and busiest airports and key IndiGo hubs—Delhi and Mumbai—hardly saw any schedule curtailment by the airline. No flight has been dropped at Delhi, while just two flights have been cut in Mumbai.

The schedule math

As per the schedule filed in early December, IndiGo was to operate 2,008 domestic flights on December 29, while the new schedule has 1,878 flights listed. This change represents a reduction of 6.5 per cent in the airline’s domestic operating schedule for the day. IndiGo’s international schedule of over 300 daily flights was not impacted by the DGCA order, and the airline continues to maintain its international flights at that level.

While the curtailment may appear lower than the 10 per cent mandated by the regulator, IndiGo is in compliance with the directive, sources said. This is because the 10 per cent reduction was ordered on the airline’s approved Winter Schedule of around 2,145 daily domestic flights, which brings down the daily permitted domestic flights to around 1,930—still higher than the 1,878 flights listed for December 29. It is common for airlines to get schedule approvals for more flights than they operate for operational flexibility and adding capacity mid-season.

IndiGo’s operations have now stabilised and the airline has been operating around 2,200 daily flights, including over 300 international flights, for the past few days. This is just slightly lower than its earlier daily flight count of over 2,300. According to sources in the know, the airline is likely to continue operating at around 2,200 daily flights, including around 1,900 domestic flights, till the end of the ongoing Winter Schedule, which ends in the last week of March 2026.