Attention Flyers! Domestic Flight Prices May Rise From April 2026 Over Indigo Disruption Fallout - What Expert Says

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Domestic flight prices may rise in the upcoming April 2026 summer schedule if IndiGo's flight disruptions from December 2025 weigh on the capacity constraints in upcoming operations in the Indian aviation market, according to the Aviation Market Outlook 2026 from analytics firm Cirium.

Richard Evans, Senior Consultant, Cirium Ascend Consultancy, explaining the sector outlook on 4 February 2026, said that India's aviation growth is expected to drop for April 2026 due to the IndiGo flight disruptions.

Also Read | How a passenger's complaint triggered a national antitrust probe into IndiGo

The expert also said that if the effect of the 'schedule meltdown' carries on this year, marking a year-on-year (YoY) decline in operational capacity, then this move is likely to increase airfares in the domestic market.

“So India is actually down at the moment for April, and that's the largest extent because of the Indigo sort of schedule meltdown we saw before Christmas. So they've had, they've had to cut their capacity, and I don't know how long this is going to carry on for, if capacity really is going to be down YoY in India. Yeah, it's not growing, but you would imagine that fares will go up in that market,” said Evans.

Is Indian aviation capacity shrinking?

The Ministry of Civil Aviation's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) imposed a 10% operational cut on India's largest airline operator, IndiGo's fleet, resulting in a potential ripple effect in the operations and capacity schedules into 2026.

Also Read | IndiGo loses nearly 4% market share in December after flight disruption

Although experts predicted that the domestic aviation sector would grow at a nearly 10% rate per year over the next decade, but now the capacity is shrinking on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.

“India has recorded tremendously strong growth over the last couple of years. In our Cirium forecast released in October 2025, we forecast that India was going to grow at about 10% per annum over the next decade,” said Richard Evans.

The aviation analyst also mentioned that Cirium is predicting a 2% YoY drop in April 2026 summer schedule, compared to their year-ago numbers, if the effect of the IndiGo disruption prevails.

“We've actually got India shrinking the April 2026 schedule, which is 2% lower than April 2025,” said the expert.

Also Read | Air India grounds flight after pilot reports possible fuel control switch defect IndiGo lost market share

Mint reported earlier that IndiGo lost 4% of its domestic market share in December after the massive flight disruption in December 2025 over the government's updated flight duty norms.

IndiGo's market share dropped to 59.6% in December 2025, compared to 63.6% market share levels back in November 2025, according to monthly traffic data from the DGCA.

In December, IndiGo recorded an operational meltdown with more than 4,500 flights cancelled, leaving lakhs of passengers stranded across airports in the country. So far, the airline is still recovering from its FDLT norm update hit as the management steers the operations back on track amid high air travel demand.

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