Flight cancellations drop below 850 as airline says ‘focused on stabilising schedules’

In a post on X, IndiGo apologised and said they will do everything in their capacity to restore services.

Here's the post

https://twitter.com/IndiGo6E/status/1996984647545229324?s=20

Picture a little girl asleep on a luggage trolley, her teddy tucked under her arm, airport lights too bright for midnight. Her flight was cancelled without warning. A few feet away, an elderly couple sits on a hard floor, exhaustion visible in their posture. Their medication is in a checked-in suitcase they can’t retrieve. A young woman stands alone, shoulders shaking silently, drafting an apology email to a new employer, she will not make her first day because the flight she paid for simply disappeared. These are not scenes from a disaster movie. This is India’s aviation reality today.

IndiGo, the airline that controls India’s domestic skies, has left thousands stranded as its network collapses under new pilot fatigue rules. The irony is painful: Regulations meant to protect passengers have instead become a catalyst for passenger suffering.

But let’s be clear: The rules are not the problem. The revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) were announced well in advance, aimed at reducing pilot fatigue that can lead to deadly mistakes. Airlines had more than a year to prepare: Recruit, rebalance schedules, strengthen operations.

They didn’t.

A phased rollout gave Indigo even more time: First July 2025, then full enforcement from November 2025. Yet when the day arrived, IndiGo’s network collapsed. Instead of readiness, there was chaos. Instead of accountability, there were excuses. It is not just pilot fatigue but passenger safety too. Amit Singh writes

Indian Railways (IR) has augmented 116 extra coaches to 37 trains to ensure smooth travel and adequate availability of accommodation across the network. The move comes amid the surge in passenger demand following widespread IndiGo flight cancellations.

The national transporter has augmented 37 trains with 116 additional coaches, operating over 114 augmented trips across the country.

Southern Railway (SR) has carried out the highest number of augmentations, enhancing capacity in 18 trains. Additional Chair Car and Sleeper Class coaches have been deployed on high-demand routes. On the other hand, Northern Railway (NR) added extra coaches of 3AC and Chair Car class on eight trains. These measures implemented today onwards enhance availability on heavily travelled northern corridors, it said. Read more

Angry passengers confronted and shouted at IndiGo airline staff at Swami Vivekananda Airport on Friday after several of the carrier's flights were abruptly cancelled or rescheduled.

Standing outside the airport for hours and desperate for some information from the airline, the frustrated passengers looked for senior IndiGo staff members since those on the counter failed to explain things satisfactorily.

"I have been standing here for two hours. Call the concerned person, let us go inside. We are standing here like fools!" shouted an irate passenger, reflecting the mass mood of stranded people. Even the airport officials did not respond to messages and calls seeking details of cancellations.

There was no clear communication from the airline, some passengers claimed, adding that they were shocked to find their morning flights rescheduled to late night with no guarantee that even then flights would be operated.

Arun Kumar Patra, an Odisha resident, told PTI Videos that he had booked a December 4 flight from Raipur to Delhi which was to depart at 10 pm. "I arrived here on Thursday evening from Odisha at around 5 pm, and only then I came to know it had been cancelled. I did not have the option of going anywhere else because I had already landed here," he said.

From Delhi, he was to board an international flight on Friday, Patra added. "IndiGo rescheduled my flight to 2 pm on Friday, so I extended my international flight to the morning of December 6. But this IndiGo flight too has been cancelled now, so I don't know how I will even reach Delhi. Even a train won't get me there on time," he said.

Even if he found a place on a flight on Saturday, he was not sure if it would not be cancelled, he said, claiming that no one on the airline's side was responding. "They themselves don't know which flight will operate," Patra said.

PTI

In a bid to facilitate stranded passengers, the Northern Railway jumped into action by adding an additional coach in the Rajdhani Express operating between Jammu and Delhi beginning Friday for the next seven days. “In the wake of the ongoing flight disruptions, the Indian Railways has taken an important decision to augment one 3rd AC coach of 72 seats in the Jammu-New Delhi Rajdhani for the next seven days, beginning tonight (December 5),” a senior Railways official said, adding that stranded passengers can avail of this facility by booking seats in the additional coach.

As the IndiGo crisis continues, CEO Pieter Elbers has issued apology and said more than 1,000 flights have been cancelled Friday.

Here's his full statement:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I am Pieter Elbers, the CEO of IndiGo. I want to share with you that we have experienced severe operational disruptions for the past few days. Since then, the crisis continued to aggravate, with today, December 5th, being the most severely impacted day with the number of cancellations well over 1.000, or more than half of our daily flights.

I, on behalf of all of us at IndiGo, would like to extend our sincerest apologies for the major inconvenience this has caused to many of our customers on account of delays or cancellations.

This situation is a result of various causes, yet for you as a customer it’s important how we, as IndiGo, address this.

We have three lines of action:

- Firstly, Customer communication and addressing your needs. For this, messages have been sent on social media and just now a more detailed communication with information on refunds, cancellations and other customer support measures was sent. Also, we have stepped up our call center capacity.

- Secondly, due to yesterday’s situation we had customers stranded mostly at the nation’s largest airports. Our focus was, for all of them to travel today itself, which will be achieved. For this, we also ask customers whose flights are cancelled not to come to airports as notifications are sent on this.

- Thirdly, cancellations were made for today as to align our crew and planes to be where they need to start afresh tomorrow morning.

Regrettably, earlier measures of the last few days have proven not to be enough. So we decided today for a reboot of all our systems and schedules, resulting in the highest number of cancellations so far, but imperative for progressive improvements starting tomorrow onwards. With these actions we expect tomorrow to have cancellations below 1.000. The support of DGCA in providing specific FDTL implementation relief, is of great help.

Still, there is lot of work in progress, but going forward from here, in alignment with Ministry of Civil Aviation and DGCA, we expect to further improve every day. Given the size, scale and complexity of our operations, it will take some time to return to a full normal situation, which we anticipate between 10 and 15 December.

I do understand that these disruptions have caused much discomfort to our customers and has shaken their belief in IndiGo’s reliability carefully build over past 19 years. My colleagues, all the great IndiGo teams and frontline staff have been working relentlessly to address this situation. Rest assured, we are doing everything in our control to not only restore your trust and belief, but strengthen it further over time.

Thank you for your patience, understanding and kindness during this difficult time. We shall keep you updated on a ongoing basis."

The Opposition lashed out at the Centre over the crisis and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi blamed the IndiGo “fiasco” to the BJP-led government’s “monopoly model” and asserted that India deserves fair competition in every sector, not “match-fixing monopolies”.

"IndiGo fiasco is the cost of this government's monopoly model. Once again, it's ordinary Indians who pay the price -- in delays, cancellations and helplessness," the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha said in a post on X.

"India deserves fair competition in every sector, not match-fixing monopolies," he added. The former Congress chief also shared an article of his published in The Indian Express last year, in which he had said the original East India Company wound up more than 150 years ago but the raw fear it then generated is back with a new breed of monopolists having taken its place.

Gandhi had asserted that a "new deal for progressive Indian business is an idea whose time has come". Sharing the article on X on November 6 last year, Gandhi had said, "Choose your India: Play-Fair or Monopoly? Jobs or Oligarchies? Competence or Connections? Innovation or Intimidation? Wealth for many or the few?" "I write on why a New Deal for Business isn't just an option. It is India's future," he had said. Read his column

All IndiGo flights have been cancelled till midnight at Terminal I of Chennai airport. In a post on X, Chennai airport said, "All @IndiGo6E domestic flights operating from Terminal 1 are cancelled until 2359 hrs on 05.12.2025."

The Centre has ordered high-level inquiry into the crisis. The government ordered to keep new flight duty norms in abeyance and sought other operational steps to help normalise operations.

Adding to the woes of passengers, flight charges have also skyrocketed. The only Mumbai-Delhi flight available for Friday (December 5) was quoting a fare of Rs 51,860 per passenger, while the sole Delhi-Mumbai flight was showing seat availability at Rs 48,972.