Aniket PujariIndiGo has slipped on on-time performance—its once-wonted performance metric— like never before, recording just 35% of its flights on time on 2 December 2025, a Tuesday. Tuesdays are typically the lowest load factor (passenger occupancy) days in a week, and though there was a slight downtick in total flights as well as passengers, IndiGo’s load factors were north of 90%, according to aviation ministry data, published daily on its website. The airline, which ended October with the best On-Time Performance among its peers, has been facing challenges with punctuality in recent times.
What exactly caused the on-time performance to fall so badly in the last few weeks?
Punctuality woes
The airline attributed the drop in punctuality to “several unavoidable flight delays in the past few days due to various reasons including technology issues, airport congestion and operational requirements”.
Data obtained from Cirium, an aviation analytics company, indicate that airlines in India were scheduled to operate 3,404 domestic departures on 3 December. Only 3,189 flights operated in reality.
Among the lot, IndiGo was scheduled to operate the largest number of domestic departures, with 2,046. It remains unclear how many of these were cancelled. At 65% flights not going on time, this would translate to over 1,300 flights being delayed.
However, the regulator publishes on-time performance for six metro airports at the end of the month. These also have the largest chunk of all operations across airlines. In the case of IndiGo, it operates a little over 1,000 departures from the six metro cities, and an on-time performance of just 35% would mean over 650 flights being delayed. Interestingly, it had one of the best Load Factors of 91.2% on 2 December, which is an indicator of passengers being accommodated across other flights of the airline.
The airline has been facing headwinds over the last few weeks, with multiple news reports across cities talking about pilots not being available for flights, leading to delays. The second part of the new FDTL (Flight Duty Time Limitations) was implemented on 1 November, which would have led to an increase in the requirements of pilots. The cascading effect of delays due to software version rollback, as mandated by Airbus and the regulator, along with weather patterns in the country, seems to have hit harder on Tuesday.
However, other airlines have significantly better on-time performance reports across all days when IndiGo has been reporting sub-50% OTP or on Tuesday when it reported 35% OTP.
This is not the first time that IndiGo has had such a challenge. In early 2019, the airline was forced to cancel 2% of its total flights due to pilot shortage, after initially blaming a spate of cancellations on a hailstorm. This cancellation led to 30 flights being impacted. IndiGo has nearly doubled its operations since then when it held 43% market share compared to 65% now in domestic skies.
Delays to have a ripple effect
The airline today is much larger, operating as a network carrier and international feeder, compared to 2019. Delays impact not just passengers on one sector, but also have a ripple effect that can lead to missed flights across partner carriers and international ones, resulting in higher expenditures for recovery. The airline has recently inducted a number of wet leases on the narrowbody side, with both Airbus and Boeing aircraft operating for IndiGo in domestic and international skies. This will partially help tide it over the challenges currently. However, it has to quickly get its act together as we head towards the peakest of peaks in the last days of December. The airline could be forced to reduce some red-eye flights, where the impact of revised norms under FDTL is maximum.
Sliding rupee takes a heavy toll
The operational performance, taking a hit, has come a month after the airline declared losses due to forex in the last quarter, and the rupee is headed to an all-time low with each passing day, crossing 90 to a dollar. With airline expenditure being dollar-denominated, it is already hit by the sliding rupee. Operational challenges is the last thing that the airline possibly wanted.
How the airline recovers from here on will be keenly watched by the industry and passengers. While it has a large monopoly on routes, Air India Express has been increasing its presence on many routes in recent years, which may impact yields for IndiGo as passengers shift to other available options. The famed On Time Performance guarantee of IndIGo taking a hit always makes more people notice than anything else.
