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IndiGo faced one of its most severe operational breakdowns in recent years after more than 200 of its flights were cancelled and several hundred others delayed across major airports on Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving thousands of passengers stranded and terminals choked with long queues. The sudden collapse of schedules disrupted travel plans nationwide and sparked questions over the airline’s preparedness for peak winter operations.

Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said on Wednesday it has begun investigating the widespread disruptions and sought a detailed explanation from the airline. The watchdog has asked IndiGo to submit both the reasons behind the crisis and its mitigation plan to prevent a recurrence.

Crew Shortage and New Duty-Time Rules Squeeze Operations

According to aviation sources quoted in an NDTV report, the immediate triggers include an acute shortage of crew following the implementation of stricter Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules from November 1. The revised norms sharply cut the number of flying hours permitted for pilots and expanded mandatory rest periods.

Several flights were grounded simply because no legally available pilots or cabin crew were left to operate them. Sources said entire flight rotations had to be scrapped after crew members rostered earlier became ineligible to fly under the new duty limits.

IndiGo, which operates one of Asia’s largest domestic networks with over 2,200 daily flights, struggled to rebalance its schedules in time. The new roster framework required sweeping changes to duty cycles, night-landing operations and weekly rest charts. Insiders said the airline’s scheduling systems were still stabilising when the new norms took effect, triggering crew shortages across high-density routes.

Technical Failures, Airport Congestion Add to Delays

Technical glitches at major airports further compounded the problem. On Tuesday, failures were reported in check-in and departure control systems at airports including Delhi and Pune, resulting in prolonged queues and cascading delays across multiple IndiGo rotations. As delays piled up, the tightly interconnected movement of aircraft and crew across sectors was thrown badly off course.

The chaos was intensified by heavy winter traffic, peak-hour congestion and fog-related operational stress at metro airports. With its high-frequency, tightly packed flight network, even small delays snowballed into system-wide disruption for the airline.

IndiGo’s website notes that it operates “well over 2,200 daily flights.” Government data from Tuesday showed its on-time performance had plunged to just 35 per cent, indicating that more than 1,400 flights were delayed in a single day.

Separately, DGCA data showed that a total of 1,232 IndiGo flights were cancelled in November alone, underlining mounting operational strain even before this week’s mass disruption.