Flight cancellations and delays caused by operational disruptions at IndiGo have significantly impacted the tourism and hospitality sectors during the peak festive and holiday season. The country’s largest airline has cancelled over 5,000 flights in just one week, leaving thousands of passengers stranded and forcing many to alter their travel plans.
“Festive season travel is extremely sensitive to timing. Even a single cancellation can break an entire itinerary—missed hotel nights, forfeited bookings, additional transfer costs, and loss of sightseeing days. The distress for travellers is real, and the reputational impact on India’s travel experience is significant,” said Ravi Gosain, President of the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO). He added that tour operators and travel agents are running 24/7 ‘war rooms’ to rebook passengers, protect onward travel plans and minimise losses.
The CEO of a leading tours and travel company told TNIE that popular winter and wedding destinations like Goa, Jaipur and Udaipur have seen a sharp rise in hotel booking cancellations since the disruption at IndiGo began. He added that both inbound and outbound tourism have been affected as IndiGo is a key player on short-haul international routes.
“Passengers who booked tickets in advance at lower prices are unlikely to travel now as fares have surged. We have seen significant cancellations over the past week,” he said, requesting anonymity. IndiGo, the airline with a 63% domestic market share, exclusively operates over 60% of domestic routes, leaving many passengers with no alternative but to fly with it.
Jatin Khanna, CEO of Sarovar Hotels, said that they have seen some cancellations in the first week of December to the tune of approximately 1600 room nights but recovered 30% back due to extensions. “We do see a lesser impact in the past couple of days but cancellations are still trickling in. We have changed our forecast by -4%-5% and are monitoring the situation,” Khanna told TNIE.
Oravel Stays, the parent firm of Oyo (now PRISM), announced that it will fully refund travellers who are unable to use their hotel bookings from December 5–15, 2025 due to the flight disruptions. The refund applies to travellers whose flights were delayed by more than four hours or cancelled due to the ongoing operational difficulties.
IndiGo has cancelled more than 5,000 flights since last Tuesday due to a severe crew shortage, especially pilots, following revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) norms introduced last month. India’s aviation regulator DGCA on Monday slashed IndiGo's winter schedule, reducing the number of flights by 10%. IndiGo is about to operate more than 1800 flights on Tuesday, connecting all 138 stations in its network, and plans to fly nearly 1900 flights on Thursday. IndiGo operates about 2,200 domestic and international flights daily.
The disruption at IndiGo is also likely to weigh on the margin of the travel and tourism sector. Varun Goel, Senior Fund Manager- Equity, Mirae Asset Invst Managers (India), said that in the short term, the new rules and regulations by the DGCA will ensure that the profitability comes down at the margin for the sector as a whole. “So, one will have to realign the profitability metrics for all companies in the sector, and to that extent, there might be some kind of a valuation reset for the space. But beyond that, we believe the growth runway seems to be quite large,” added Goel.
