IndiGo crisis in India continues as over 400 flights remain grounded: Check latest updates

📌 Offering some much-needed relief, IndiGo on Saturday announced that nine of its 11 flights from Jammu Airport would resume. In contrast, seven flights from Srinagar were cancelled. The airline had been scheduled to operate 36 flights at Srinagar on Saturday — 18 inbound and 18 outbound, officials told PTI.

📌 More than 200 flights from Delhi and Mumbai were cancelled on Saturday, a day after the airline managed to secure temporary relaxations in the second phase of the court-mandated new flight duty and rest regulations for cockpit crew, according to sources.

📌 To accommodate the surge in passengers, the Western Railway on Saturday opened bookings for three Special Trains connecting Mumbai and Ahmedabad to New Delhi and Durgapura in Rajasthan amid the ongoing air travel disruption caused by widespread IndiGo cancellations. The special trains will run between December 7 and December 10 and will largely consist of AC-3 Tier coaches.

📌 Western Railways has also added additional AC-3 and AC-2 Tier coaches to several high-demand trains in the region from Saturday to support passenger movement toward New Delhi.

📌 In response to the crisis, the Centre ordered a high-level investigation to determine the causes and accountability behind the large-scale disruptions. The crisis stems from newly introduced regulations that increased pilots’ weekly rest requirements by 12 hours to 48 and limited night-time landings to two per week, down from six. IndiGo has attributed the mass cancellations to “misjudgment and planning gaps.”

📌 The government has now placed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) Flight Duty Limitation (FDTL) norms in abeyance with immediate effect.

📌 With widespread cancellations, ticket prices soared on Friday. The only Mumbai–Delhi flight available that day was priced at Rs 51,860 per passenger, while the only Delhi–Mumbai flight showed seats at Rs 48,972. Many sectors showed no flight availability for Friday, and fares remained high on Saturday as well.

📌 Assuring passengers of a full refund for cancellations, the airline said payments would be automatically returned to the original mode of transaction. “We will offer a full waiver on all cancellation and reschedule requests for bookings made for travel between December 5 and 15.” The airline added that hotel rooms in various cities and ground transportation have been arranged for customer convenience.

📌 IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers issued a statement apologising for the inconvenience caused to the passengers and added that more than 1,000 flights have been cancelled in a single.