The country’s largest airline IndiGo has assured aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) that it will fully comply with the new Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules related to working hours and rest of pilots (IndiGo DGCA Compliance). airline has clarified that all necessary operational, rostering and monitoring arrangements have been put in place for compliance with the rules.
According to DGCA, the temporary relaxation given on the new rules related to the duty of pilots has ended on February 10. After this, the regulator issued a detailed statement on Wednesday and shared information about IndiGo’s preparations.
Strictness after the chaos of December
It is noteworthy that due to huge operational disruption in the beginning of December, IndiGo had to cancel 2,507 flights between December 3 and 5 (IndiGo DGCA Compliance). The investigation revealed that excessive operational optimisation, lack of regulatory preparation, deficiencies in system software support and weaknesses in the management and operational control framework were impacting flight operations.
In view of these circumstances, DGCA had ordered a 10 percent reduction in IndiGo’s winter scheduled flights and was given time till February 10 to implement the new FDTL rules.
Full compliance from 11th February
According to the DGCA statement, IndiGo has informed that it is fully prepared to implement the approved FDTL scheme on 9 October 2025 after the expiry of the stipulated deadline. The airline said that all necessary operational, rostering and monitoring systems have been activated for full compliance with the new rules from February 11, 2026.
It is noteworthy that IndiGo’s domestic market share had declined to 59.6 percent in December, which was 63.6 percent in November. At that time the company was operating about 2,200 flights per day.
What are the new FDTL rules
Under the new FDTL rules, many important changes have been made regarding the duties and rest of pilots-
Weekly rest period increased from 36 hours to 48 hours
The crew member will get two full nights at home during this period
Night duty now defined as midnight to 6 am
Pilots will now be given duty only for two consecutive nights
Night landing limit reduced from 6 to 2 a week
Monthly flying time reduced from 125 hours to 100 hours in 28 days
Airlines are required to submit hourly flight operations data and weekly performance reports to DGCA.
DGCA says that the purpose of these rules is to increase flight safety and balance the workload on pilots (IndiGo DGCA Compliance). After the assurance given by Indigo, it will now be important to see how effectively the rules are followed at the ground level.
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