IndiGo cuts long-haul international flights due to airspace restrictions and congestion

IndiGo has announced a reduction in its long-haul international services operated by Boeing 787-9 aircraft, citing airspace restrictions and growing congestion at airports in India and abroad. The airline said the changes are aimed at restoring operational reliability and improving on-time performance.

In a statement, IndiGo said, “With the objective of avoiding inconvenience to customers due to misconnections and cascading delays, we have decided to take immediate measures to stabilise our wide-body operations.”

IndiGo explained that flight durations have increased significantly due to airspace closures and rerouting caused by geopolitical developments, as well as congestion at major airports. This has led to higher ‘block times’ the total time taken from departure gate to arrival gate, making it harder for the airline to efficiently utilise its six Boeing 787-9 aircraft.

As a result, IndiGo said it had no option but to reduce services on certain long-haul routes to build recovery time into schedules and prevent delays from cascading across its network.

As part of the network revision, IndiGo will suspend its Delhi–Copenhagen service from February 17 until further notice.

The airline will also reduce frequencies on the Delhi–Manchester route in phases. From February 7, flights will drop from five per week to four, and from February 19, further reduce to three weekly services. Overall, IndiGo’s Manchester connectivity will fall from nine flights per week to seven, with changes to operating days designed to allow more buffer time in the schedule.

In addition, IndiGo will reduce flights on the Delhi–London Heathrow route from five to four services per week starting February 9 for the remainder of the winter schedule, which runs until the end of March.

Indian carriers continue to face multiple airspace restrictions. Pakistan’s ban on Indian airlines using its airspace, imposed in April last year, remains in force, forcing airlines to take longer routes to Europe and West Asia.

Additionally, heightened tensions between the United States and Iran during January and February this year led to further restrictions and avoidance of Iranian airspace, adding to flight time and fuel costs.

IndiGo said it is proactively contacting affected customers to offer alternative travel options or provide refunds and compensation as per applicable regulations.

The airline added that it will continue to closely monitor operational conditions and may scale its long-haul operations up or down depending on how airspace and congestion constraints evolve.

These international cuts come after earlier reductions in domestic services. In December, IndiGo cancelled 4,290 flights between December 1 and 9 after facing a shortage of pilots while implementing new flight duty time limitation (FDTL) rules, which introduced more humane working hours for crew and came into effect in November.