Saturday 06 / December / 2025
Muscat: A large number of passengers travelling between Oman and India have been stranded as Indian carrier IndiGo cancelled more than a thousand flights across major Indian cities over the past few days, causing widespread disruption.
More than 1,000 IndiGo flights were cancelled on Friday alone, following 175 cancellations on Thursday and 150 on Wednesday.
On Saturday also hundreds of IndiGo flights were cancelled.
IndiGo operates regular flights from Muscat International Airport to Mumbai, Cochin and Hyderabad.
“After landing in Mumbai, Delhi, Kochi, Banglaore and Hyderabad, hundreds of passengers use IndiGo’s domestic flights to travel to other parts of India,” a travel agent based on Ruwi High Street said.
Similarly, several travellers catch international carriers after landing in top tier Indian cities from their home destinations, he added.
One such traveller, P. Kumar, who was scheduled to fly from Patna to Muscat via Hyderabad, missed his SalamAir connection on Saturday morning.
“None of the IndiGo flights took off from Patna for Hyderabad despite my checking in for the SalamAir flight. When I contacted the SalamAir office, I was told that no refund could be issued since I had already checked in. Now who is going to pay for my loss?” he told Times of Oman.
Determined to reach Muscat, Kumar took a 17-hour train trip from Patna to Delhi, then boarded an Oman Air flight to Muscat. “I lost around INR30,000 (OMR130) in the entire chaos,” he said.
Kumar is not the only among thousands of travellers affected by the growing crisis at major Indian airports, now stretching into its fifth consecutive day.
IndiGo — which commands over 60% of India’s domestic aviation market — has attributed the mass cancellations to multiple factors, including stricter flight duty time limits recently introduced by India’s aviation regulator to address pilot fatigue. The airline said the new safety norms had severely disrupted crew rostering.
As the crisis spilled into day five, several passengers from Oman transiting through airports in India shared their frustration, reporting long delays, missed connections, and sky-high ticket prices that made alternative arrangements impossible.
“My flight to Muscat from Mumbai was delayed on Friday, and as a result I missed the connecting flight. I couldn’t book another airline because the fares had shot up,” said one affected passenger.
Moreover, when the agitated passengers confronted Indigo staff at the airport, they showed their helplessness. When asked about the rescheduling of flight, they said it will be only available after five days much to their discomfort.
Even the Air India, Air India Express and Spice Jet employees didn’t came to the rescue of hapless travellers as all their flights were fully booked for the next few days.
Across India, crowds of disgruntled travellers voiced their anger at airports, while many took to social media to criticise the airline.
In a message posted on social media on Friday, IndiGo said it “deeply apologised” for the disruption.
“While this will not get resolved overnight, we assure you that we will do everything in our capacity to help you in the meantime and to bring our operations back to normal at the earliest.
“We are known for our reliability but in these last few days we have a serious operational crisis. For many customers, their journeys were cancelled, and many of you were at the airports with long wait times and little information.”
India’s Civil Aviation Minister, Ram Mohan Naidu, announced on Friday that the new flight duty time limits had been placed in abeyance with immediate effect.
“Without compromising on air safety, this decision has been taken solely in the interest of passengers, especially senior citizens, students, patients and others who rely on timely air travel for essential needs,” the minister said.
He added that his ministry expected schedules to stabilise and operations to return to normal very soon.
