IndiGo, which has been in the limelight for over hundreds of flight cancellations, informed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Thursday that it would reduce flight operations from 8 December to minimise disruptions.
The flight disruptions, which numbered over 300 on Thursday, took place due to misjudgment and planning gaps in implementing new Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) norms, IndiGo told aviation watchdog DGCA, as per a report by PTI.
The budget carrier also told the DGCA that cancellations would continue for next 2-3 days as part of schedule stabilisation efforts.
Corrective actions are underway, IndiGo said, adding that stable flight operations would be fully restored by February 10, 2026.
The DGCA, for its part, has said that it will closely monitor airfares as IndiGo rushes to fix its scheduling problem.
DGCA also said that the number of cancellations by IndiGo in the previous few days were also substantially higher than normal.
The regulator also said that the number of cancellations by IndiGo in the previous few days was also substantially higher than normal.
A public apology, an internal acknowledgement
IndiGo's latest update to the DGCA came a day after the budget carrier issued a public apology to flyers for the inconvenience caused due to hundreds of flights getting cancelled across major airports such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.
“We acknowledge that IndiGo’s operations have been significantly disrupted across the network for the past two days, and we sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience caused,” IndiGo said on Wednesday, explaining that a congested schedule, adverse weather, scheduling changes, and implementation of FDTL norms caused the widespread disruptions.
On Thursday, IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers also shot a letter to employees, acknowledging that the airline had failed to live up to its promise to provide a smooth and enjoyable flying experience for its customers.
“These past few days have been difficult for many of our IndiGo customers and colleagues. We serve close to 380,000 customers a day and want each of them to have a good experience. We could not live up to that promise these past days and we have publicly apologized for that,” Elbers said on Thursday in an internal communication accessed by Hindustan Times.
He also added that IndiGo was prioritising the restoration of normal services, “which is not an easy target”. Elbers explained that the size, scale and complexity of IndiGo's restoring services a challenging endeavour in the immediate short-run.
However, he also called on IndiGo employees to rally and “overcome this challenge and emerge even stronger”.
What can flyers do for the time being?
As IndiGo works to fix its schedule and bring services back to normalcy, there's not much flyers can do at the moment.
The airline has advised people to check the status of IndiGo flights prior to departing for the airport.