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When will the Indigo crisis end, this is how it started, here is the complete timeline
Sanjeev Kumar | December 5, 2025 8:23 PM CST

Indigo's condition worsened

The number of flight cancellations and delays in the network of 20-year-old domestic airline IndiGo at major airports in India is increasing. Hundreds of people are facing problems at major airports of the country. This crisis started from 2nd December. Complaints started coming in from the same day and the disruption in service continued even on December 5. According to PTI, at least 400 flights were canceled at the country's airports. On December 3, at least 150 flights were canceled at major airports including Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Kolkata. Let us tell you in detail when this problem started, why it started and what is the update on it till now. What is the scope for further improvement?

Indigo flight disruption continued even today. The airline has requested for temporary relaxation in some rules limiting the night working hours of pilots to normalize the service. Let us understand its complete timeline.

This is the timeline of Indigo crisis

  1. On December 2, passengers complained about delays in IndiGo flights at Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai airports. Airline sources said this happened due to operational reasons and poor visibility in the weather.
  2. On December 3, flights of IndiGo, SpiceJet and Air India were delayed as a technical glitch affected the check-in system at different airports. Sources told Hindustan Times that on that day, 42 Indigo flights from Bengaluru airport and 32 from Mumbai airport were cancelled. Indigo said that in the last few days, due to technical problems, excessive crowd at the airport and operational requirements, many of its flights were delayed and some flights had to be cancelled. The airline apologized to the passengers and said that it was sorry for the inconvenience caused to the passengers and advised the people to check the flight status through official channels before boarding the flight.
  3. On 4 December, reports said that more than 180 IndiGo flights were canceled and several were delayed as the airline's problems continued for the third day. Indigo apologized for this situation and said that it has started making deliberate changes in its flight schedule. DGCA said that it will investigate these major problems and has sought a report from IndiGo explaining the reason for this situation. IndiGo CEO Peter Elbers told the staff that the most important thing at this time is to normalize operations and get flights back on track on time, which is not an easy task. He also said that the airline could not fulfill the promises made to its customers.
  4. On December 5, news agency PTI reported that around 400 flights were canceled at various airports. According to the report, around 16,500 domestic and international passengers have been affected in Delhi alone. PTI also reported that DGCA says that IndiGo will reduce its operations from December 8 to reduce the problems and many flights may be canceled beyond this.

In a report sent to the ministry, the airline said it canceled a total of 1,232 flights in November. In this, 755 flights had to be canceled due to shortage of crew or due to working time limit of pilots and crew i.e. FDT limit. 258 flights were canceled due to airport or airspace restrictions. 92 flights were canceled due to ATC system failure and 127 flights had to be canceled due to other reasons. All these problems together had a huge impact on the airline's schedule.

Why are you facing problems?

According to the airline, it faced a lot of difficulties in preparing the staff roster due to the government's crew safety rules. IndiGo operates around 2,300 domestic and international flights daily, and the airline is facing a shortage of pilots after the new flight duty time rules came into effect from November 1. On December 3, the airline said that the sudden operational challenges have seriously affected its network and that deliberate changes are being made to its schedule. The spokesperson said these included minor technical glitches, winter weather issues, inclement weather, increased congestion in the aviation system and new crew rostering rules, all of which combined to impact operations to an extent that was not possible to predict.

when will the problem go away

In response to DGCA's investigation, IndiGo has assured that all its operations will be completely normal by February 10. According to Civil Aviation Ministry data, the airline's on-time performance was 35% on December 2, it fell to 19.7% on December 3 and just 8.5% on December 4. Indigo posted on social media platform X saying that we are sorry for the inconvenience you are facing. The data of flight cancellations has been the lowest on 5th December. The facilities will be better in the coming times. Also, the airlines said that we are insuring that your money will reach your account after the flight is cancelled.

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