New Delhi – India’s biggest airline, IndiGo, is still facing big problems with its flights even after more than a week of trouble. Thousands of flights have been cancelled since early December, leaving many passengers stuck at airports. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has now taken strong action by sending a special team to watch IndiGo’s office in Gurugram every day and ordering the airline to cut its flights by 10% until March 2026.
The crisis started because IndiGo could not handle the new rules for pilots and crew that came in November. These rules give more rest time to avoid tiredness and make flying safer. But IndiGo did not plan well for this change, so it ran short of ready crew. This led to hundreds of cancellations every day, especially in big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai.
DGCA Sets Up Oversight Team at IndiGo’s Gurugram Office
On December 10, the DGCA formed an 8-member team of senior flight operations inspectors to keep a close watch on IndiGo. Two members from this team stay at IndiGo’s corporate office in Gurugram every day. They check important things like the number of planes, pilots available, crew schedules, unplanned leaves, and which routes are affected by staff shortage.
Along with this, two other DGCA officers – Deputy Director Aishveer Singh and Senior Statistical Officer Mani Bhushan – are also posted there. Their job is to track cancellations, refunds, on-time performance, passenger compensation, and baggage delivery. Both teams have to send a daily report by 6 pm to senior DGCA officials.
This is one of the strictest steps the regulator has taken in years. The DGCA has also ordered surprise checks at 11 smaller airports like Nagpur, Jaipur, Bhopal, Surat, Tirupati, Vijayawada, Shirdi, Cochin, Lucknow, Amritsar, and Dehradun to see the real situation on the ground.
Government Orders 10% Cut in IndiGo’s Winter Flights
To help IndiGo recover and stop more cancellations, the Civil Aviation Ministry told the airline to reduce its winter schedule by 10%. This means about 200-215 fewer flights every day until the winter season ends in March 2026. At first, the DGCA said 5%, but the ministry increased it to 10% because IndiGo could not show it can handle the full plan.
IndiGo has agreed to this and says it will still fly to all 138 places it serves, but with fewer flights. The airline now plans to operate around 1,950 flights per day instead of over 2,200 earlier. This cut is meant to give IndiGo more time to fix crew schedules and avoid sudden cancellations.
IndiGo’s Current Situation and Recovery Efforts
IndiGo says things are getting better since December 9. The airline is now running over 1,950 flights daily and serving about 3 lakh passengers. It has reconnected all destinations since December 8, and on-time performance has improved. Most cancellations now happen only due to weather or technical issues, not crew shortage.
The airline has processed refunds for many cancelled flights and is giving ₹10,000 travel vouchers to passengers who were badly affected from December 3 to 5. Chairman Vikram Singh Mehta made a video apology and said the board will hire outside experts to find out what went wrong and how to stop it in the future.
Passenger Problems and Airport Impact
Passengers are still facing a lot of trouble. For example, on December 10, Hyderabad airport had 77 IndiGo flights cancelled, and Bengaluru also saw many cancellations. Long queues, missing bags, and poor updates are common complaints. The Delhi High Court has asked IndiGo and the government to speed up refunds and compensation.
The government has set up a 24×7 control room to help people. Railways added extra coaches to trains, and some airports arranged buses for stranded passengers.
What IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers Said
On December 11, CEO Pieter Elbers met DGCA officials and gave a full report on the crisis. He said the problems came from a mix of technical issues, winter schedule changes, bad weather, and the new crew rules. Elbers promised that normal operations will return soon and apologised again for the inconvenience.
In an earlier video message, he said, “We have let you down when a major operational disruption happened and we are sorry for that. Your airline, IndiGo, is back on its feet and our operations are stable.”
This crisis is the worst in IndiGo’s 20-year history. Its shares fell nearly 17%, losing billions in value. The airline has cancelled over 4,500 flights since December 2, affecting lakhs of people.
The government and DGCA are watching closely. They say such big problems should not happen again. Passengers are asked to check the IndiGo app or website for flight updates before going to the airport.