IndiGo crisis widens: Hyderabad sees 77 flight disruptions, Ahmedabad logs 18 cancellations by 8 am

Hyderabad / New Delhi / Mumbai: IndiGo’s network-wide disruption stretched into its seventh day on Monday, with Hyderabad, Delhi, and Mumbai among the worst hit as cancellations piled up and passengers queued for hours at crowded terminals.

At Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA), authorities confirmed that 77 IndiGo flights were affected, including 38 arrivals and 39 departures cancelled, making it one of the hardest-hit hubs in the current wave of disruptions.

Ahmedabad Airport reported 18 IndiGo cancellations by 8 AM, including nine arrivals and nine departures.

However, airport authorities confirmed that terminal and airside operations remained smooth and that passenger facilitation was being handled. 21 IndiGo flights operated during this period, including seven arrivals and 14 departures.

In the national capital, Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport reported the highest single-airport impact on Monday, with 134 IndiGo flights cancelled — 75 departures and 59 arrivals. At Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport, operations were similarly strained, with 127 cancellations (65 arrivals, 62 departures) logged as the airline struggled to stabilise its schedule.

While Monday’s exact tally for Mumbai was still evolving, passengers at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport faced fresh delays and rolling cancellations, just a day after the airport saw 146 IndiGo flights cancelled by 8 pm on Saturday (70 arrivals and 76 departures), forcing authorities to deploy special teams for baggage retrieval and crowd management.

The cascading disruptions are part of a wider December 2025 IndiGo crisis, which has seen over 3,800 flights cancelled nationwide as of December 7, driven largely by the airline’s struggle to realign schedules under new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) crew-rest norms and other operational challenges.

Amid the mounting chaos, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has taken a tougher line. The regulator issued a show-cause notice to IndiGo’s Accountable Manager and CEO on December 6 over “large-scale disruptions and observed non-compliances” and later granted a one-time 24-hour extension to file their reply, with the deadline now fixed for 6 pm on Monday.

Separately, the DGCA issued a public appeal to pilot bodies, urging “full cooperation” to restore stability as the sector enters peak winter and fog season. Pilot association ALPA India has backed the regulator’s push to maintain the revised FDTL fatigue-protection norms, warning that rolling them back to ease the crunch would compromise safety.

For passengers, the fallout has been severe. Visuals from major airports show long queues at IndiGo counters, luggage lying unclaimed, and families camping overnight in terminals. Authorities in Delhi and Mumbai have repeatedly advised travellers to check flight status with airlines before heading to the airport, as schedules continue to shift throughout the day.

The government, meanwhile, has forced airlines to cap fares on key routes and pushed IndiGo to speed up compensation. The Civil Aviation Ministry said IndiGo has already processed about ₹610 crore in refunds and delivered around 3,000 pieces of stranded baggage, while the airline claims it has restored operations at 137 of its 138 stations and expects to fully stabilise its network by December 10.

But with passengers in Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, and several other cities still facing last-minute cancellations and packed rebooked flights, confidence in IndiGo’s reliability — and in the system’s ability to handle peak-season demand — remains badly shaken.