IndiGo’s market share decline continued for a second month in a row after the airline’s share of the domestic market fell by nearly four percentage points in December due to widespread flight cancellations and a significant reduction in daily flights, according to data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
The largest airline in the country saw its market share drop to 59.6% in December, down from 63.6% in November, according to the latest traffic data from the aviation regulator. This is the lowest monthly market share for IndiGo in the last two years.
In November, the airline had already lost about two percentage points of its market share, even before the major disruptions in December began. However, despite the dip in the last two months, IndiGo wrapped up 2025 with an annual market share of 64%, up from 61.9% in 2024.
The InterGlobe Aviation-run airline experienced major operational disruptions in the first week of December, resulting in more than 4,500 flight cancellations that left thousands of passengers at airports nationwide.
The mass cancellations were mainly caused by new pilot rest rules and tighter restrictions on night-time flying hours. As a result, the airline had to reduce its scheduled domestic flights by about 10%.
Over nine lakh passengers saw flights cancellations in December
According to DGCA data, around 9,82,072 IndiGo passengers saw their flights get cancelled in December, and the airline spent Rs 22.74 crore on facilitation. Similarly, around 6,39,714 IndiGo passengers faced delays beyond two hours in December.
Incontract a combined 60,880 passengers of Air India, Akasa Air and SpiceJet saw their flights get cancelled in December, and the airlines spent Rs 1.36 crore on facilitation. Similarly, around a total 1,87,610 passengers of Air India, Akasa Air and SpiceJet faced delays beyond two hours in December.
India’s domestic air passenger traffic also fell by four percent in December 2025 compared to the same month last year, largely due to challenges faced by major airline IndiGo.
DGCA data shows that scheduled domestic flight operators carried about 1.43 crore passengers in December 2025, marking a decline of 4.14% year-on-year. In December 2024, domestic airlines transported 1.49 crore passengers.
The Air India Group (Air India and Air India Express) took advantage of IndiGo’s loss in December by increasing its market share to 29.6%, up from 26.7% in November, carrying 42.29 lakh passengers during the month.
Similarly, Akasa Air improved its market share to 5.2% after ferrying 7.43 lakh passengers in December. SpiceJet also saw its market share rise to 4.3%, with 6.14 lakh passengers flown during the month.
Airline cancellations rising sharply
Domestic airlines’ operational performance, however, came under pressure in December, with cancellations rising sharply during the month.
The overall cancellation rate surged to 6.92%, sharply higher than 1.33% recorded in November, with DGCA data indicating that cancellations were largely driven by operational and weather-related factors.
On-time performance at six metro airports also weakened. Interestingly, Akasa Air and SpiceJet had significantly worse overall on-time performance in December 2025 than IndiGo, despite the former facing significant operational disruption.
The Air India Group topped the chart with an OTP of 66.31%, followed by IndiGo at 62.7%, while SpiceJet recorded the lowest OTP at 46.9% during the month, and Akasa Air reported an OTP of 55.6%.