Multiple domestic flight cancellations by IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa Air over recent days have triggered fresh travel disruption across India’s busiest corridors, with more than a dozen services scrubbed on key routes linking Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and other major cities. The latest wave of cancellations, layered on top of lingering operational pressures and seasonal weather disruptions, has left passengers facing last minute schedule changes, longer journey times and a renewed sense of uncertainty in India’s crowded aviation market.
Fresh Cancellations Hit Metro and Tier 2 Routes
According to recent operational updates, at least 17 domestic flights have been cancelled across five major airports, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai, along with key regional hubs. The cancellations involve a mix of early morning and late evening departures, compressing already busy schedules and reducing same day rebooking options for affected travellers. Many of the scrubbed flights were operating on high demand sectors such as Delhi Srinagar, Mumbai Chennai and connections linking other tier 2 cities with metro hubs.
IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa Air together account for the bulk of these cancellations, with several routes witnessing disruption on consecutive days. Aviation trackers and airport operations data point to repeated cancellations on specific city pairs, suggesting not isolated incidents but a pattern of sustained strain on crew availability, fleet rotations or weather dependent scheduling. For passengers, that has translated into long queues at rebooking counters, extended waits for baggage and sporadic communication as airlines try to juggle aircraft and crews around a congested network.
Industry sources indicate that while the absolute number of cancelled flights is modest when set against India’s total daily departures, the concentration on a handful of trunk routes and peak time slots amplifies the impact. Flights connecting Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and Chandigarh are particularly sensitive because they form the backbone of both business and leisure travel, and often carry substantial numbers of transit passengers relying on tight connections.
IndiGo’s Prolonged Scheduling Hangover
The renewed disruption comes against the backdrop of IndiGo’s high profile scheduling crisis that unfolded in December 2025, when the airline struggled to adapt its rosters to tighter crew work time and rest regulations introduced by the aviation regulator. At the peak of that crisis, IndiGo cancelled thousands of flights within days, and key metro airports like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata saw scores of arrivals and departures scrubbed on a single day as the carrier tried to realign operations.
Although IndiGo has since restored most of its schedule and reported that more than ninety five percent of its network connectivity is back in place, the aftershocks of that episode remain evident. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation granted the airline temporary exemptions from some crew duty rules for its A320 fleet until early February 2026, on condition that it submitted regular updates on crew deployment and a roadmap for full compliance. This regulatory breathing room was designed to stabilise operations, but left the airline with little margin for error when faced with additional pressures such as weather disruption or unexpected sick leave.
Recent cancellations involving IndiGo on routes like Delhi Ahmedabad, Mumbai Chennai and other metro to regional sectors underscore how finely balanced its network remains. Any spike in crew shortages or airport congestion can quickly tip into cancellations as the carrier works within duty time limits. For passengers, that means that even relatively small schedule adjustments by IndiGo can cascade through the network, pushing up fares on alternative carriers and leaving limited same day recovery options, particularly on busy business travel days.
SpiceJet’s Financial Strain and Operational Jitters
SpiceJet, which has long battled financial headwinds, has also been part of the latest cancellation pattern on domestic routes. The airline recently reported a significant quarterly loss, reversing profits from the previous year and citing higher operational costs and one time charges as key drivers. Such financial strain can have knock on effects on reliability, from the pace of maintenance and spare part provisioning to the ability to lease in additional capacity or wet lease aircraft when schedules come under stress.
While the current wave of cancellations involving SpiceJet is limited in absolute numbers, it lands in the context of an airline working to rebuild resilience after past episodes of grounding and cash flow pressure. On routes such as Mumbai Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad Patna and certain metro to non metro corridors, even a handful of cancellations or extended delays can create a perception issue among frequent flyers who may already be wary of tight turnaround times and thinner schedules.
Aviation analysts note that when one carrier in a competitive market is under financial and operational pressure, the ripple effects often spread beyond its own passengers. Cancellations or reduced frequencies by SpiceJet can quickly push demand onto other budget and full service airlines, tightening seat availability and lifting spot fares. That dynamic is now visible on several of the routes affected by the latest disruptions, where last minute ticket prices have climbed sharply compared with seasonal norms.
Akasa Air’s Growing Pains and Passenger Experience Concerns
Akasa Air, the youngest of the three carriers in focus, has faced its own bout of operational turbulence in recent days. On a recent Mumbai Goa service, passengers endured a journey that stretched to roughly seven hours for what is typically a little more than an hour’s flight, amid delays, on tarmac waits and sparse communication. Travellers described being held on board for extended periods with limited updates and inadequate refreshments, prompting a wave of complaints on social media and renewed scrutiny of the airline’s disruption management protocols.
While that particular incident centred on extended delay rather than outright cancellation, Akasa has also featured in the list of flights cancelled on metro and regional routes in the latest disruption cycle. Services connecting Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Guwahati and other key cities have seen both delays and cancellations as the carrier calibrates its still expanding network and fleet. For a young airline positioning itself on punctuality and service, such episodes highlight the operational challenges of scaling up fast in a market already strained by infrastructure constraints and tight crew availability.
Customer experience experts point out that when disruptions occur, communication and care standards can make a decisive difference to passenger perception. Clear and timely alerts via SMS, email and apps, straightforward rebooking options, and visible staff presence on the ground are often the elements travellers remember long after the delay itself. For Akasa, as for its more established rivals, refining these processes could prove critical as flight volumes grow and seasonal weather systems test resilience across the network.
Weather, Fog and Seasonal Pressure on Schedules
The timing of the latest cancellations also coincides with a period of intense seasonal weather in parts of India. Dense fog in northern regions has recently led to dozens of delays and a number of cancellations at airports such as Ahmedabad, where flights to and from Delhi suffered extended holdups and several services were scrubbed outright. An Akasa Air service from Delhi to Ahmedabad was among those affected by long delays, while IndiGo and other carriers also recorded significant schedule slippage on north bound and south bound legs.
In Delhi itself, bouts of heavy fog have repeatedly forced the airport and airlines to thin out schedules, holding back departures and diverting or cancelling arrivals when visibility drops below minimum thresholds. Regulators and airlines have been emphatic that safety must take precedence, even when that means last minute changes and aircraft circling for extended periods before being rerouted. The Ministry of Civil Aviation has in past fog spells warned passengers to expect delays, diversions or cancellations and urged them to stay closely in touch with airlines for real time updates.
Other metros face their own weather pinch points. Mumbai’s monsoon season and occasional cloudbursts can produce short notice runway restrictions and taxiway bottlenecks that spill into delays and missed slots. Chennai has previously grappled with severe fog that forced multiple diversions to Bengaluru and other airports, while visibility fluctuations at Bengaluru and Hyderabad during certain months compound air traffic management challenges. When weather disruptions stack on top of crew duty limits and already tight schedules, cancellations by carriers such as IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa become more likely, as seen in the current episode.
Passenger Impact: Higher Fares, Longer Journeys and Uncertain Itineraries
For travellers caught in the middle of these disruptions, the immediate effects are stark. Flights cancelled or heavily delayed at short notice can force passengers to consider more expensive alternatives, accept overnight stays, or take circuitous routings that add hours to domestic journeys that are typically completed in two to three hours. When a large carrier like IndiGo pares back capacity even by a few percentage points on busy corridors, remaining seats on rival airlines quickly command premium prices.
During earlier phases of IndiGo’s scheduling disruption, spot fares on routes such as Delhi Bengaluru and Delhi Mumbai vaulted far beyond normal levels, with some one way tickets selling for many times their usual price bands. Similar, if more contained, spikes have accompanied the latest series of cancellations, especially on same day and next day departures where corporate and urgent personal travel clusters. Passengers in cities like Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad have reported difficulty finding reasonably priced alternatives when flights are pulled with only hours to spare.
Beyond the immediate financial hit, the psychological impact of recurring disruptions is also significant. Business travellers whose schedules rely on first wave morning departures are particularly sensitive to cancellations, as they may miss full working days or key meetings. Families and leisure travellers, meanwhile, often face added accommodation and local transport costs, as well as the frustration of truncated holidays or missed events. For inbound and outbound tourists using India’s metro hubs as gateways to other regions, cancelled domestic segments can mean missed international connections and complex rebooking decisions across multiple carriers.
Regulatory Oversight and Airline Responses
The recent pattern of cancellations has drawn renewed attention to the role of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Civil Aviation in balancing passenger protection with operational realities. In response to IndiGo’s earlier mass cancellations, regulators not only granted temporary flexibility on crew duty rules but also imposed fare caps on key routes to prevent opportunistic price spikes. They also insisted on rapid processing of refunds and clear communication with affected customers, signalling that large scale disruption would not be treated as merely a commercial matter.
For the current, smaller but still significant wave of cancellations, officials are closely monitoring on time performance, cancellation ratios and complaint levels at major airports. Airlines have been encouraged to schedule conservatively during known weather risk windows, and to improve contingency planning for crew rostering and aircraft positioning. There is also an expectation that carriers will proactively alert passengers to potential disruption hours before departure where forecast fog, storms or extended airspace restrictions make schedule changes likely.
Airlines, for their part, are emphasizing that safety remains non negotiable and that cancellations are sometimes unavoidable when visibility, crew rest or technical checks fail to meet regulatory standards. IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa Air have all urged passengers to use digital channels to track flight status, and to arrive at airports with additional buffer time during peak disruption periods. However, passengers and consumer groups continue to press for more consistent compensation policies, better ground handling during long delays and clearer minimum standards for meals, accommodation and rebooking in the event of cancellations.
What Travellers Should Do in the Current Environment
In light of the latest disruptions involving IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa Air, frequent flyers and occasional travellers alike are reassessing how they plan domestic journeys. Industry experts advise building in additional flex time for critical trips, especially on weather sensitive mornings in northern India and during late evening peaks where crew duty cut offs can trigger last minute cancellations. Booking earlier flights in the day, where possible, increases the chance of same day reaccommodation if a flight is pulled or severely delayed.
Passengers are also encouraged to keep contact details updated with airlines and travel agents so that automated alerts by text and email reach them promptly. Using official apps to monitor gate changes, revised departure times and aircraft swaps can reduce time spent queuing at counters and help travellers adjust ground transport and hotel plans in real time. For those booking through online travel agencies, checking the specific cancellation and change policies attached to each fare can prevent unpleasant surprises when seeking rebooking or refunds.
As India’s domestic aviation market continues to grow rapidly, episodes like the current cancellations highlight both the progress and fragility of the system. Metro airports handle vastly higher traffic than a decade ago, and newer airlines like Akasa have added welcome competition and capacity. Yet the combination of stringent safety rules, infrastructure constraints, erratic weather and financial pressures on carriers can still converge to disrupt even the best planned itineraries. For now, travellers on routes touching Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and other key hubs will need to remain vigilant, flexible and well informed as IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa Air work to stabilise schedules and rebuild confidence after this latest round of disruptions.