IndiGo, the airline that carries about two of every three domestic passengers in India, said Thursday it will review its network and how much it flies to limit the hit from high fuel costs. It's still losing money, though less than a year ago, reporting a loss of 1,879 crore rupees, roughly $215 million, between July and September. If IndiGo flight cancellations or fares are on your mind, what this one airline decides matters far beyond IndiGo. When it had a rough Tuesday this week, canceling 70 flights and delaying more than 500 after a network outage at Mumbai's airport and a cyclone on the east coast, air travel across the whole country felt it.
How IndiGo Got So Big
IndiGo is a budget airline that grew into a giant. It now flies more than 430 planes on nearly 2,200 flights a day, to almost 100 cities in India and about 45 abroad. In September, it carried 65.4% of everyone who flew within India, according to the country's aviation regulator, the DGCA. Air India and its sister airlines carried about 27%, and the much smaller Akasa Air under 6%. Few big countries have a single airline this dominant at home.
That size has advantages for travelers. IndiGo has the most flights on most routes, so if your flight is canceled there's often another one later the same day. Its fares are usually low, and its planes are young. But it also means that when IndiGo has a problem, there aren't many other seats to move people onto.
The Meltdown Nobody in India Has Forgotten
The clearest example came last December. India introduced new rules giving pilots more rest, including limits on how many night landings each pilot could make. IndiGo hadn't adjusted its schedule to match, and in early December it ran short of pilots. Between Dec. 3 and 5 alone, the DGCA says IndiGo canceled 2,507 flights and delayed 1,852 more, leaving over 300,000 passengers stranded.
The fallout was serious. The regulator temporarily eased the pilot rules for IndiGo to get flights moving, ordered the airline to cut its schedule and later fined it about 22.2 crore rupees, around $2.45 million, reportedly the largest fine the regulator has ever issued. An official inquiry blamed "over-optimisation of operations," meaning the schedule left too little slack for anything going wrong. IndiGo's CEO, Pieter Elbers, apologized publicly and resigned in March. In August, Willie Walsh, the former head of British Airways and the global airline group IATA, took over.
How Reliable Is It, Really?
Outside of that crisis, IndiGo's day-to-day record is good. In August, 91% of its flights at India's six biggest airports were on time, the best of any major Indian airline. Air India managed about 84%.
The weak spot is what happens when something outside its control goes wrong. Because IndiGo runs so many flights so tightly, a storm, a systems outage or an airport problem can knock dozens of flights out of position at once, and that's what happened on Tuesday. The war with Iran has added pressure too. IndiGo suspended several Middle East destinations earlier this year, and higher fuel prices have pushed it into the red for two quarters running, after a large profit a year earlier.
Where IndiGo Goes Next
Thursday's results put the money problem front and center. IndiGo's revenue grew 26% from a year earlier, so people are still flying it in big numbers, but fuel is eating into what it earns. Its boss reportedly said the airline doesn't expect major cost-cutting, since its costs are already "very efficient," and will instead look at its network and capacity, meaning which routes it flies and how often. For travelers, the impact may come sooner than expected. Walsh reportedly said Thursday that the airline has “no choice left but to look to increase fares” because of rising fuel costs, which make up around 40% of an airline’s operating costs. It isn't alone, either. Air India Group reportedly lost more than 6,000 crore rupees between April and June, about double its loss a year earlier.
IndiGo is also in the middle of a reset on long-haul flying. It's ending the leased Boeing 787s it used to fly to Europe, moved its Mumbai to Amsterdam route to a smaller single-aisle Airbus A321XLR, dropped Manchester and paused London until its own Airbus A350s start arriving, which is expected in 2027. Closer to home, it's one of the airlines starting to move international flights to Navi Mumbai's new airport in 2027. Under Walsh, the question is whether it slows down to build in more breathing room or keeps growing as fast as it has.
If You're Flying IndiGo
India has clear rules on what airlines owe you, and they apply to every flight within, to or from the country. If your flight is canceled with less than 24 hours' notice, you're entitled to a new flight or a refund, plus compensation of up to 5,000, 7,500 or 10,000 rupees depending on how long the flight is. Long delays come with meals and, eventually, a refund option or a hotel. The catch is that weather, security threats and air traffic control problems don't count, so a cyclone cancellation gets you a refund or rebooking but not extra cash.
A few habits help. Book the earliest flight of the day when you can, since it's least likely to be knocked out by earlier problems. Leave longer connections than you'd want, especially if you're connecting to an international flight. And if you booked within the last 48 hours, India's newer refund rules often let you cancel or change for free.
