The civil aviation ministry on Tuesday asked IndiGo to curtail its overall winter flight schedule by 10 per cent to stabilise operations and reduce cancellations.

IndiGo, which operates about 2,300 domestic and international flights daily, will have to shear its schedule by 230 flights. This will help the airline run a leaner and more efficient fleet whose numbers will be less than the unrealised official capacity and ease the crisis that has led to thousands of cancellations in the past few days.

The decision was taken following a meeting between civil aviation minister Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu and IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers. Naidu, who had on Monday said IndiGo’s winter flight schedule would be cut and its slots assigned to other airlines, did not mention any such plan on Tuesday.

The winter schedule covers the period between October 26, 2025, and March 28, 2026.

Elbers was summoned to the ministry to provide an update on the aviation crisis stemming from IndiGo’s mass cancellations and flight delays that have been attributed to the airline’s failure to align its operations with the government’s new Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL).

Naidu said Tuesday’s meeting was to review stabilisation measures. “The ministry considers it necessary to curtail the overall IndiGo routes, which will help in stabilising the airline’s operations and lead to reduced cancellations. A curtailment of 10 per cent has been ordered. While abiding by this, IndiGo will continue to cover all its destinations as before,” Naidu said.

Elbers told the aviation ministry that IndiGo had completed refunding passengers for flight cancellations till December 6. “A strict instruction to expedite the completion of the remaining refunds and baggage handover was given,” Naidu said.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Opposition parties staged a walkout in the Lok Sabha, calling the aviation minister’s announcement of mitigation measures unconvincing. Naidu reiterated the government’s assurance that strict and appropriate action would be taken against IndiGo for causing inconvenience to lakhs of passengers.

Addressing the Lok Sabha, Naidu asserted that no airline, however large, would be permitted to cause hardship to passengers through planning failures and non-compliance with regulations.

IndiGo controls over 65 per cent of the domestic aviation market share.

Naidu informed Parliament that prima facie, it had been observed that IndiGo’s internal rostering “disruptions” had led to the large-scale flight cancellations.

Early on Tuesday, aviation regulator DGCA had directed IndiGo to cut its overall winter operations by 5 per cent with priority on high-demand and high-frequency routes, taking strong note of the fact that the carrier had failed to run the current schedule efficiently. The DGCA cautioned IndiGo not to reduce flights on routes where the carrier operates a single flight daily.

IndiGo is to submit a revised schedule to the aviation regulator by Wednesday evening.

The IndiGo crisis eased further on Tuesday with over 400 flight cancellations.

IndiGo said in a statement: “Today (Tuesday), we are operating more than 1,800 flights, connecting all 138 stations in our network, and plan to fly nearly 1,900 flights tomorrow. We have optimised our operations, and our on-time performance is also back to normal levels.”

In a video message, CEO Elbers said lakhs of customers had already received full refunds for the cancelled flights and the process was ongoing.

“IndiGo is back on its feet, and our operations are stable. We have let you down when a major operational disruption happened and we are sorry for that,” he said.

Elbers said many bags stuck at airports had been returned to their owners and teams were working to deliver the rest of the stranded luggage soon.