Written by Sukalp SharmaNew Delhi | December 11, 2025 05:23 PM IST 5 min readAn IndiGo aircraft prepares to land at Kempegowda International Airport as construction work in progress on the Namma Metro bridge, in Bengaluru, Karnataka, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (PTI Photo)IndiGo is likely to gradually scale up its operations over the coming days to around 2,200 daily flights in all, of which around 1,900 will be domestic and roughly 300 international, according to sources in the know. This truncated schedule is expected to last the entire Winter Schedule, which ends on March 28, 2026. These flight volumes would be in line with the government’s cap on the airline’s domestic operations.IndiGo, which usually operated over 2,300 daily flights, was ordered by government on Tuesday to curtail its domestic flight schedule by 10 per cent following network-wide disruptions at the country’s largest airline, which led to scores of flights cancellations on a daily basis since the middle of last week. Currently, the airline is operating over 1,900 flights–domestic as well as international. The widespread operational disruption that hit IndiGo–India’s largest airline with a domestic market share of nearly 65 per cent–had largely impacted the airline’s domestic network, with little impact on its international operations.“The effort will be to increase the total number (of flights) to around 2,200 over the next few days. It is unlikely that schedule would go beyond that at least till March. Any further expansion would only be possible in next year’s Summer Schedule,” said a source.Also Read | IndiGo crisis puts spotlight on Modi govt’s youngest minister: Who is Ram Mohan Naidu?IndiGo’s schedule has over 2,300 daily flights, around 2,150 of which are domestic flights. A 10 per cent curtailment in domestic flights would mean that the airline’s daily scheduled flights within the country would come down to less than 1,950. According to sources, the freed-up slots may be offered to other carriers if they have additional capacity that can be deployed.IndiGo announced Tuesday that its operations have stabilised and normalised. The airline has been flying to all 138 destinations on its network since Monday, with number of flights increasing gradually from over 1,700 on Monday to around 1,950 likely to be operated today. Its on-time performance (OTP) has also normalised to its usual 80 per cent-plus, from the record-lows recorded last week. IndiGo said Thursday that since Monday, it has faced any same-day flight cancellations, “other than negligible cancellations due to weather, technical, other external or uncontrollable factors”.The airline is also working with airports across the country to reflect its truncated schedule. Sources said that some airports are still going by the airline’s original schedule and have not taken into account the schedule adjustments, leading to them showing many flights as cancelled, even as such flights had been removed from the schedule and the affected passengers adjusted on other flights or given rescheduling options, refunds, etc.The airline’s weekly domestic flights had increased to 15,014 in the Winter Schedule, which took effect from October 26, from 14,158 weekly flights in this year’s Summer Schedule. IndiGo, however, faced crew shortages, primarily due to its inadequate preparation for the second phase of the new crew rest and duty norms that took effect on November 1. From early December, this led to widespread network-wide disruption in the airline’s, which brought India’s aviation ecosystem to its knees, and affected tens of thousands of passengers as the airline cancelled scores of flights on a daily basis.Story continues below this adThe new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules stipulate more rest for pilots and rationalisation of their flying duties—particularly late night operations—in a bid to better manage pilot fatigue, which is a key risk to aviation safety. These new norms, which were stipulated in January last year were delayed in their implementation, and took effect in two phase—from July 1 and November 1—with the second phase rollout hitting IndiGo considerably. The new norms meant that airlines either had to have more pilots to maintain their schedule, or curtail their schedules in line with the new requirements.IndiGo had started feeling the heat in November itself with a higher-than-usual number of cancellations and flight delays throughout the month. As the delays compounded, with a few other external factors, disruptions became widespread over the past few days.In review meetings with the authorities, IndiGo also accepted that that the disruptions “have arisen primarily from misjudgement and planning gaps in implementing” the second phase of new FDTL rules, with the airline saying that the actual crew requirement for the new rules exceeded what it had anticipated, as per the DGCA.Given the scale of the disruption, the DGCA on Friday granted IndiGo a temporary one-time exemption from some night operations-related changes in the new FDTL norms for its Airbus A320 pilots. The temporary rollback, which will be in place till February 10, is likely to help IndiGo to get its act together and stabilise operations from heron. The DGCA has also granted a few other temporary relaxations to IndiGo.Story continues below this adBut the government and the regulator have turned up the heat on IndiGo with the initiation of an inquiry by a DGCA panel into the disruption. The regulator also issued show cause notices to the airline’s chief executive officer Pieter Elbers and its chief operating officer Isidre Porqueras. Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu has blamed lapses on IndiGo’s part for the disruption and said that strict action will be taken on the basis of the inquiry report to “set an example”. He said that sufficient notice was given by the DGCA to all airlines for the implementation of the new FDTL rules.Sukalp Sharma is a Senior Assistant Editor with The Indian Express and writes on a host of subjects and sectors, notably energy and aviation. He has over 13 years of experience in journalism with a body of work spanning areas like politics, development, equity markets, corporates, trade, and economic policy. He considers himself an above-average photographer, which goes well with his love for travel. ... Read More © The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:cancelled flightsIndigo