IndiGo flight snags dent winter travel mood, platforms expect brief soft patch

IndiGo flight disruption.

India’s peak holiday winter season has run into headwinds, with IndiGo cancelling hundreds of flights and triggering a wave of frantic rebookings.

Travel companies expect a small, temporary slowdown, but see demand for winter getaways holding strong.

Cox & Kings' Director Karan Agarwal estimates a temporary dip in last-minute bookings roughly 5–7 percent. "But this is more of a short-term reaction to the uncertainty. Travellers are being cautious, but cancellations are still very low," he added.

Flight cancellations and delays aren’t stopping winter travel, but they are disrupting travel plans and at times costing travellers hotel cancellation charges, said Ravi Gosain, President, Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO). "Most of the travel agents have to create war rooms to rebook for travellers and to adjust their itineraries."

Travellers are a bit wary right now, so many are choosing places they can drive to instead of flying, noted Dushyant Bhalla, Director and CEO of AABEE Resort and Travel. He is expecting a slight dip of 5–10 percent in business during the winter season. "The disruptions have definitely made some people rethink travel."

The Ministry of Civil Aviation in late October had announced the winter schedule of all scheduled domestic airlines coming into effect from October 26. A total of 26,495 flight departures per week across 126 airports in the country was approved by the ministry.

Indigo was allotted the maximum departures of 15,014, while Air India and Vistara combinedly were responsible for 4,277 departures. This marked an improvement of 5.85 percent over the winter schedule of 2024.

The Ministry had said that when compared with the summer schedule, the winter schedule will have 1,000 additional departures.

Travel technology platform ixigo had reported increase in international flight bookings by 40-45 percent year-on-year (YoY), while domestic searches in December had risen 45-50 percent month-on-month (MoM).

"What we are experiencing right now is not an isolated operational hiccup, it’s a multi-layered disruption driven by severe winter weather systems, aircraft-related technical mandates, and ongoing staffing challenges across airlines and airports worldwide. Travellers on multi-leg or international journeys are experiencing disruptions, missed connections, and itinerary changes," Alok K Singh, Chairman and CEO, SNVA Traveltech (Travomint), said.

But he added that while some travellers are rescheduling or delaying their plans to navigate delays and cancellations, very few are cancelling bookings entirely.

Cancelled flights and constrained seat availability have resulted in airfare increases of 20-25 percent on some routes, noted Govind Gaur, Co-founder and CEO WanderOn, a Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) travel-technology firm.

More than 700 flights were scrapped today alone with total cancellations crossing 1,000, leaving passengers stranded at major hubs, fares on rival airlines surging, and regulators turning up the heat.

"Coupled with the uncertainty over flight reliability, this fare surge is likely to discourage some travellers-primarily price-sensitive and leisure travellers-from booking winter trips," he added.

Anil Kalsi, Board Member, Federation Of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality (FAITH) said that there are very few or sometimes no alternatives to reach the destination even at a much higher cost in such situations. "Indian aviation is largely a duopoly and Indigo being the market leader has a huge responsibility to bear on its persistent performance."

While the domestic segment is hit hard, the impact is less on international routes. "Most of our bookings are international, and those flights haven’t been affected the way domestic ones have. So, rescheduling or cancellations haven’t been a major concern for us," Bhalla said.

The demand remains strong, driven by peak-season priorities such as weddings, honeymoons, holidays, Christmas, and New Year travel, Singh noted.