Flyers breathe easy as all IndiGo flights set to return to Kol next week
Times of India | 13 December 2025
Kolkata: After a week of anxiety and relentless checking of flight schedules, IndiGo passengers flying out of Kolkata can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Full normalcy in operations is set to return from Monday, with all scheduled flights expected to take off as planned, multiple officials and industry sources confirmed. Minor seasonal mergers of low-load flights may still occur, but large-scale disruptions are unlikely, they added.
On Saturday, IndiGo will operate 108 of its 112 scheduled flights from Kolkata, with the day's cancellations confined largely to the Mumbai and Delhi sectors. From Monday, all 112 flights are expected to run — a pattern officials say should hold through the rest of the busy winter window, barring any unforeseen emergency.
For many flyers, the assurance has come as the first real moment of calm in days.
"I have a Dec 16 morning flight to Delhi and was extremely worried about whether it would even take off. If normalcy is restored by Monday, there can be no better news," said Behala resident Rishwav Mondal, who is travelling for work.
Jadavpur resident Pallavi Sengupta, travelling with her family to Varanasi on Dec 20 before heading to Lucknow, said: "I was checking the flight status every day to see if it was still on the schedule. If it was cancelled, we would have had to call off the trip. Booking fresh tickets at premium rates, that too at short notice, was not possible."
As TOI reported on Friday, the uncertainty triggered sleepless nights for hundreds of passengers — many with long-planned holidays, critical business trips, or tight international connections. Since early this week, social media has been flooded with anxious travellers tagging IndiGo, desperately seeking clarity on whether their flights were among the 200-plus services the DGCA ordered the airline to cut due to a pilot shortage. For many, there was just one question: Will my flight take off?
The fresh assurances from the airline, Kolkata airport authorities, and travel operators have finally provided the reassurance they were seeking. In a statement, IndiGo confirmed that its "operational normalization and stability" efforts were progressing after last week's massive meltdown.
"IndiGo is set to operate over 2,050 flights on Friday, as per its revised scaled-down schedule… We have informed all our airport partners to publish the new flight schedules on terminal screens to avoid any confusion," a spokesperson said.
Travel industry bodies, which had been fielding a barrage of panic calls all week, welcomed the development. Anil Punjabi, chairman of Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI), said the clarity was overdue.
"We have been told that from Monday, things will be perfectly in order. All passengers booked on flights will fly on time. In an emergency, flights may be merged, but there will be no random cancellations," he said.
Anjani Dhanuka, chairman of Travel Agents Association of India, said, travellers and agents were grappling with uncertainty. "Our customers were frantically calling us to ask if their flights would be on time or if they needed to book another one as a precaution. Even we were confused. If normalcy is restored next week, it will be a huge relief for everyone," Dhanuka said.