07/12/2025
✅ What’s happened — How many flights cancelled / disrupted
On some days recently, IndiGo cancelled over 1,000 flights nationwide.
The Indian Express
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Reuters
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On other days the number has varied: for example, on one day around 500 flights were cancelled.
Reuters
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Hindustan Times
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On a recent day, the airline cancelled about 850 flights.
India Today
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The Economic Times
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In addition to full cancellations, there have been many delays and schedule-shifts — cumulatively causing widespread disruption across major airports including Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and more.
The Times of India
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The Economic Times
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Because IndiGo is a very large airline with many daily flights, even a fraction of cancellations translates to “hundreds / thousands” of passengers being affected.
The Indian Express
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The Times of India
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🛑 Why is this happening — Main reasons
The root cause is that new crew duty rules (on resting hours and night-flying) came into force recently — and IndiGo was reportedly unprepared for the change.
www.ndtv.com
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www.ndtv.com
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Key factors:
Under new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) norms, pilots and crew must have longer weekly rest, fewer night-landings per week, and stricter limits on night flights.
The Economic Times
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The Indian Express
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Because IndiGo operates a very large network — many late-night / early-morning departures, high aircraft/crew utilization — the change severely disrupted its crew scheduling and availability.
The Indian Express
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Deccan Herald
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As a result, many flights could not find available pilots/crew — leading to mass cancellations.
www.ndtv.com
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The Economic Times
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Other contributing factors: minor technical glitches, weather-related or seasonal congestion issues, winter-schedule changes, which further aggravated the disruption.
The Economic Times
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Deccan Herald
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So while the new rules themselves are designed for safety (reducing fatigue), the main problem is that IndiGo’s roster-planning did not adapt in time — leading to a cascade of cancellations.
The Indian Express
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www.ndtv.com
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🛫 What was operational earlier (before the rule) vs now
Prior to enforcement of FDTL rules (especially the “phase 2” that became effective recently), pilot duty hours & night-flight frequency were more liberal: crew schedules allowed frequent night landings and more continuous utilization. This enabled high-frequency flights and late-night/early-morning departures.
Under the new rules: weekly rest requirements and night-flight limits reduce how much each crew can operate; hence airlines must adapt by reducing number of night flights or increasing staff. For a high-utilization model like IndiGo’s, this meant either hiring more crew (or reshuffling) or reducing flights. Since IndiGo failed to reorganize in time, many flights had to be cancelled.
The Indian Express
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Reuters
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Other airlines weren’t hit as hard because they have fewer flights or more flexible scheduling; or perhaps they manage fleet/crew less aggressively than IndiGo.
Dawn
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The Times of India
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🎯 After rule + Now: What IndiGo and Government are doing
The aviation regulator DGCA has temporarily eased or modified some of the crew-rest restrictions (for example, allowing substitution of leave for rest) to help stabilize operations.
The Indian Express
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Dawn
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IndiGo says it is working to reboot its rostering and expects “progressive improvement,” but also said full restoration may take some days.
The Indian Express
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Reuters
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For affected passengers: IndiGo has promised automatic refunds or full waiver/rescheduling options for cancelled flights (for travel between 5–15 December 2025).
Hindustan Times
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The Economic Times
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🧑✈️ Why IndiGo in particular got hit hard
Even though the new rules apply to all domestic airlines, IndiGo’s large network, heavy reliance on night flights, high plane/crew utilization, and minimal buffer in crew rosters made it especially vulnerable.
The Indian Express
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The Times of India
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Because of this scale, a relatively modest shortage of available crew quickly snowballed into large-scale cancellations when the FDTL norms came into force.
Reuters
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www.ndtv.com
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✅ So — Is this (mostly) what’s causing “all” flights cancelled now
Yes — the central driver is the new pilot/crew duty schedule regulations (FDTL) + IndiGo’s unpreparedness to re-plan its crew roster accordingly. Secondary causes like winter scheduling, congestion, technical or weather issues contribute but are not the main trigger.
Deccan Herald
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www.ndtv.com
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Because the problem is systemic (rosters / regulations / scale), cancellations have been widespread (across many routes, airports, dates) — giving the impression of “all flights” cancelled (even when not literally all).
If you like — I can pull up a table showing for each day since Dec 1 2025: how many flights cancelled by IndiGo, and airports worst-hit — might help you see the pattern clearly.
