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DGCA curtails IndiGo flights by 5% amid nationwide disruptions
The government, after receiving the reply to the DGCA show cause notice issued on Friday, has decided to curtail 5% of them
The government has curtailed five percent of IndiGo flights on Monday after the airline replied to the show cause notice issued on Friday, according to an order issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
“It was observed that, as per the Winter Schedule (WS) 2025 issued by DGCA, 15,014 departures per week were approved for M/s Indigo, amounting to 64,346 flights approved for the month of November 2025. Whereas, as per the operational data submitted by Indigo, it has been observed that 59,438 flights were actually operated during November 2025, with 951 flight cancellations recorded during the month”, the notice read.
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The notice also highlighted the enhancement to IndiGo’s Summer schedule.
“Whereas, as compared to Summer Schedule (SS25), Indigo was allowed an enhancement of the schedule by 6% with 403 aircraft as against 351 aircraft in SS25. However, it has been observed that the airline could operate only 339 aircraft in October 2025 and 344 aircraft in November 2025. From the above, it is inferred that Indigo has increased its departures by 9.66% in comparison to Winter Schedule 24 (WS 24) and by 6.05% in relation to Summer Schedule 25 (SS 25)”, the notice said.
The notice stated that the airline could not operate the schedules efficiently adding that they are expected to submit their revised schedule by Wednesday evening.
“However, the airline has not demonstrated an ability to operate these schedules efficiently. Therefore, it is directed to reduce the schedule by 5% across sectors, especially on high-demand, high-frequency flights, and to avoid single-flight operations on a sector by Indigo. Furthermore, you are required to submit a revised schedule by 5pm on 10 December 2025”, the notice read.
The development comes as the civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu told HT, on Monday, that the reply to the show cause notice will determine if there was a need to take an interim action.
“However, we will wait for the four member committee constituted by the DGCA to submit its report,” he told HT.
To be sure, the airline that was supposed to submit a detailed response by Monday evening, requested for an extension of 15 days for a detailed response. They however, submitted a brief reply to the DGCA where they attributed the mass cancellations to a “compounding effect of multiple factors”.
It attributed the meltdown to a combination of “minor technical glitches,” schedule changes linked to the onset of the winter season, adverse weather conditions, increased congestion in the aviation system, the implementation of updated crew-rostering norms under the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) Phase II framework and requested additional time to conduct a comprehensive Root Cause Analysis (RCA), noting that DGCA’s own procedures allow a fifteen-day timeline for responding to show-cause notices.
