TL;DR: December 2025 became one of the most disruptive months in Indian aviation, with a single airline driving most cancellations. About 10.4 lakh passengers were affected, including 9.8 lakh on IndiGo alone. Its cancellation rate rose to 9.65% from a yearly average of 0.76%, while compensation payouts rose from ₹5.4 crore over eleven years to ₹22.76 crore in a single month.

Context

December is usually the busiest travel period in India. Schools close for holidays, families travel home, and business travel peaks before the year ends. In early December 2025, however, lakhs of passengers across Indian airports faced cancellations, long queues and uncertainty instead of holiday travel.

IndiGo, India’s largest airline, experienced a major operational breakdown. Flights were cancelled in large numbers, crews were misplaced across stations, and customer support systems struggled to cope. The airline initially cited weather, technical issues and new crew rostering rules, but later acknowledged planning gaps in estimating pilot availability after new FDTL (Flight Duty Time Limitation) rules increased mandatory rest and restricted night flying hours.

Who Compiles This Data?

Clean, structured and ready-to-use datasets related to airline cancellations, passengers affected, and compensation paid can be downloaded from Dataful.

Where can I download Clean & Structured Data on Flight Cancellations?

Clean, structured and ready to use datasets related to airline cancellations, passengers affected and compensation paid can be downloaded from Dataful.

Key Insights

One airline accounted for most passenger impact
In December 2025, nearly 9.8 lakh passengers were affected by cancellations on IndiGo alone. In comparison, Air India Group cancellations affected about 43,000 passengers, SpiceJet about 12,000, and Akasa Air about 6,000 passengers.

In other words, a vast majority of passengers affected by cancellations in December 2025 were travelling on one airline. Other airlines operated closer to normal levels, indicating that weather or airport congestion alone cannot explain the disruption. The data points to an airline-specific operational failure rather than an industry-wide crisis.

Cancellation rates moved outside normal ranges

IndiGo’s average cancellation rate in 2025 was about 0.76%. In December, this rose to 9.65%, more than twelve times higher than its usual level.

Other airlines saw smaller changes within normal ranges. Air India Group cancellations increased from 0.87% to 3.28%, Akasa Air rose from 0.26% to 0.93%, while SpiceJet’s cancellation rate was lower than its yearly average.

Airlines normally experience monthly fluctuations due to weather or operational adjustments. However, the scale of IndiGo’s increase indicates a structural disruption rather than a seasonal spike, making December 2025 an outlier in recent aviation data.

One month outweighed years of compensation

Over more than eleven years (between July 2014 and November 2025), IndiGo paid about ₹5.4 crore in compensation for cancellations. In December 2025 alone, compensation rose to ₹22.76 crore. One month, therefore, accounted for more than four times the compensation paid in the previous eleven years combined.

This sharp increase reflects both the scale of cancellations and passenger compensation rules that apply once disruption crosses certain thresholds. IndiGo’s efficiency-driven model historically kept payouts low, but the collapse of schedules led to unusually high compensation costs.

What went wrong in December

The new DGCA Flight Duty Time Limitation rules increased weekly pilot rest from 36 hours to 48 hours and restricted night flying. While these rules improved safety standards, they also reduced available pilot hours. IndiGo’s tightly optimised scheduling left little operational buffer, and the airline underestimated the number of pilots required for its winter schedule.

The airline later sought temporary exemptions from the rules to stabilise operations. Claims that a Microsoft outage caused disruptions were denied by Microsoft, strengthening the conclusion that operational planning rather than external technical failure was the primary trigger.

Why Does It Matter? 

Flight cancellations affect more than schedules. They disrupt medical travel, family plans and work commitments across the country. December 2025 showed how disruption at one large airline can affect lakhs of passengers within days.

Three lessons stand out. Scale matters because problems at the largest airline quickly spread across the system. Safety rules and operational planning must move together. And passenger compensation in India remains relatively small compared to the inconvenience faced by travellers.

For policymakers, the episode highlights the need for stronger monitoring in a concentrated aviation market. For airlines, it shows the balance required between efficiency and operational resilience. December 2025 ultimately acted as a stress test for India’s aviation system, revealing how quickly efficiency can turn into fragility when margins become too thin.

Key Numbers (December 2025)

• Passengers affected by cancellations:
  Indigo – 9,82,072
  Air India Group – 43,278
  SpiceJet – 11,929
  Akasa Air – 5,673

• Cancellation rate comparison (Average 2025 vs. December 2025):
  IndiGo – 0.76% vs 9.65% ↑
  Air India Group – 0.87% vs 3.28% ↑
  Akasa Air – 0.26% vs 0.93% ↑
  SpiceJet – 2.70% vs 1.89% ↓

• IndiGo compensation paid for cancellations:
  July 2014 to November 2025 – ₹5.4 crore
  December 2025 – ₹22.76 crore