Airline plans hiring surge to stabilise operations after December disruptions.
Crew shortages exposed gaps following new pilot duty-rest regulations implementation.
DGCA probe flagged roster stress, limited buffers and training shortfalls.
IndiGo to Hire Over 1,000 Pilots After December Flight Cancellations
IndiGo ramps up pilot hiring after December’s crew-led flight disruptions
An IndiGo aircraft parked on the tarmac at an Indian airport terminal
Summary
Advertisement
IndiGo is planning to hire over 1,000 pilots on board. This comes after the aviation giant faced massive operational disruption last December, when the company was forced to cancel over 5,000 flights within seven days, reported Economic Times.
The move comes after the massive flight disruptions experienced in December 2025, when the airline cancelled over 5,000 flights in seven days after facing an acute shortage of crew. The crisis followed the implementation of revised pilot duty and rest norms by the civil aviation regulator.
What Can One Expect
The fresh recruitment will include trainee first officers, senior first officers and captains, according to the notice on the company’s website.
According to reports, one of the hiring notices also mentioned that the airline is open to recruiting pilots without prior experience on the Airbus A320 aircraft, the primary aircraft type in its fleet.
Advertisement
Flight Crisis Attracts Scrutiny
The disruption started when new rest regulations got introduced by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The regulations increased weekly rest requirements and limited the number of landings a pilot could make between midnight and six in the morning.
According to the investigation by the regulator, IndiGo had not accelerated training or scaled up hiring sufficiently to comply with the new standards. Due to frequent reassignments, increased duty hours and prolonged "deadheading", in which crew members travel as passengers to operate flights from another location, pilots were overworked.
Reports further stated that the DGCA's investigation was a "maximising utilisation of crew, aircraft, and network resources" emphasis, which drastically lowered roster buffer margins. A heavy reliance on tail swaps, extended duty patterns and little recovery time, crew rosters were designed to maximise duty periods. The regulator claimed that this weakened operational resilience and jeopardised roster integrity.
Advertisement
The probe also found IndiGo needed 2,422 captains but had only 2,357. After the crisis, DGCA temporarily eased night-duty norms till February 10 to stabilise operations.
The updated Flight Duty Time Limitations (FTPL) norms, designed to prevent pilot fatigue and reduce human error and enhance aviation safety began phased implementation from July 2025 and got fully implemented by November 2025.