Today, On 5th December, The DGCA has withdrawn its earlier rule that said “no leave shall be substituted for weekly rest”, giving airlines major relief in managing crew rosters. The revised order, issued on 5 December 2025, aims to ease operational disruptions.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) officially withdrawn its earlier instruction that had stopped airlines from using any type of leave in place of a weekly rest day for their staff.
The new communication was issued on 5 December 2025 by the Assistant Director of Operations (FSD), Himanshu Srivastava, with the approval of the Competent Authority.
The latest order refers to the previous DGCA letter dated 20 January 2025, where a specific direction had been issued stating that “no leave shall be substituted for weekly rest”.
This line had created strict restrictions on how airlines could manage crew rosters.
The DGCA has now explained that multiple airlines had made representations highlighting operational disruptions caused by the earlier instruction.
They reported that the inability to substitute leave for weekly rest was affecting the stability and continuity of flight operations. Due to these concerns and ongoing disruptions, the regulator decided to review the earlier rule.
After this review, the DGCA has withdrawn the instruction with immediate effect. This means airlines will now be allowed to substitute leave for weekly rest, which is expected to ease roster planning and help maintain smoother operations, especially during periods of crew shortage or operational pressure.
The new order has been addressed to all operators, signalling that the change applies across the aviation sector.
More than 550 IndiGo flights were cancelled on Thursday, as disruptions worsened across major airports due to stricter government norms on crew safety that affected the airline’s roster planning.
IndiGo, which is India’s largest carrier, has informed the DGCA that it expects to bring back “stable operations” by 10 February, although some cancellations are likely to continue for another 2–3 days while it works on stabilising its schedule.
According to early estimates on Thursday, IndiGo cancelled around 95 flights in Delhi, 85 in Mumbai, 70 in Hyderabad, and 50 in Bengaluru. A day earlier, the airline had already scrapped at least 150 flights in several major cities.
What led to IndiGo’s large-scale cancellations?
The airline explained that the disruption was caused by multiple unexpected issues happening at the same time.
IndiGo stated that,
“Multitude of unforeseen operational challenges, including minor technology glitches, schedule changes linked to the winter season, adverse weather conditions, increased congestion in the aviation system and the implementation of updated crew rostering rules (flight duty time limitations) had a negative compounding impact on our operations in a way that was not feasible to be anticipated.”
In simple terms, the combined effect of winter-time changes, weather disturbances, system congestion, small technical issues, and stricter crew-duty rules resulted in a chain reaction that severely affected the airline’s ability to maintain its flight schedules.
Earlier, The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has confirmed that it is closely reviewing the large-scale disruptions and has asked IndiGo to provide a full account of what caused the situation.
The DGCA also pointed to the cancellation data for November to show the scale of the problem:
- 1,232 total cancellations
- 755 caused by crew-availability and FDTL limitations
- 258 due to airport or airspace restrictions
- 92 linked to ATC system failures
- 127 from other reasons
The regulator acknowledged that several of these reasons “lie beyond the operator’s direct control”, but still flagged a sharp drop in IndiGo’s On Time Performance which slipped to 67.7% in November, compared to 84.1% in October.
IndiGo runs more than 2,200 flights every day, almost twice as many as Air India. Because of this huge scale, even a small planning error can quickly turn into a major crisis. A 10% disruption alone affects 200–400 flights, leaving thousands of passengers stuck across the country.
On Friday in Delhi, the situation was severe 135 departures and 90 arrivals were cancelled. Bengaluru Airport also saw 52 arrivals and 50 departures scrapped, and Hyderabad recorded 92 cancellations on the same day.
Across India, the airline cancelled over 600 flights within just two days, marking one of the biggest operational breakdowns in IndiGo’s 20-year history.
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