India’s largest airline IndiGo has cancelled more than 300 flights and delayed hundreds more over the past two days as a mounting pilot shortage and enforcement of the new flight duty time limitation (FDTL) rules severely disrupted operations across its high-frequency network. Operating over 2,300 flights a day, IndiGo has been forced to scrap nearly 7 per cent of its services within 48 hours, with on-time performance plunging to 35 per cent on Tuesday as per Ministry of Civil Aviation data. The revised FDTL norms, now in their second phase since 1 November, impose tighter caps on cumulative flying hours, stricter limits during early-morning “window of circadian low” operations and a hard ceiling on consecutive night duties, leaving IndiGo struggling to manage pilot rosters and crew availability. The impact has been particularly visible at major hubs such as Delhi and Mumbai, where dozens of domestic and international flights were cancelled between midnight and late afternoon on Wednesday alone.
IndiGo has issued multiple statements acknowledging “significant disruption” to its network, attributing the chaos to a combination of minor technology glitches, winter schedule changes, adverse weather, airport congestion and the implementation of updated crew rostering rules. To stabilise operations, the airline has introduced “calibrated adjustments” to its schedules, effectively cancelling a portion of flights over the next 48 hours to restore punctuality and normalise services across the network. While other Indian carriers such as Air India, SpiceJet and Akasa Air are also subject to the new FDTL regime, they are seeing far less disruption due to smaller active fleets, slower aircraft deliveries and capacity constraints that naturally limit schedule intensity. In contrast, IndiGo’s expansive, high-frequency domestic and international network is heavily dependent on maximum crew utilisation, making it particularly vulnerable to the compounded effect of tighter duty limits, operational bottlenecks and seasonal pressures.
