Tour operators suffer as IndiGo meltdown disrupts Mumbai flights

Mumbai Airport saw 146 IndiGo flights canceled, impacting tourism as 20% of tours were canceled, stranding passengers amid poor airline handling.

MUMBAI: Mumbai Airport on Saturday witnessed the cancellation of 146 flights of IndiGo Airlines (70 arrivals and 76 departures) in the carrier’s ongoing crisis. A spokesperson of Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) said that a host of measures were put in place to ease the crisis—despite space constraints at the airport, special parking arrangements were made to accommodate approximately 25 grounded IndiGo aircraft while the problems of stranded passengers were sought to be ameliorated with additional chairs, complimentary refreshments and additional personnel being deployed at both terminals to facilitate passenger movement.

Passengers wait outside the IndiGo airlines ticketing counter at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, after several IndiGo airlines flights were cancelled, in Mumbai, India, December 6, 2025. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas (REUTERS)

A major outcome of the upheaval has been its cascading effect on the tourism industry. “Nearly 20% of our tours have been cancelled since most participants book their own air tickets,” said Prabhulal Joshi of Heena Tours. “I have been getting desperate calls, sometimes as late as 1 am, from people who have booked with us. We have allowed them to postpone their tours. But car rentals and hotels have lost out.”

Shailesh Patil, who owns Raja Rani travels and is also president of the Maharashtra Tour Organisers Association, pointed out that IndiGo was an airline with excellent credibility built over decades. “Hence the issues of the last two days have taken passengers and the travel industry totally by surprise,” he said. “The ordeals passengers have had to face are excruciating, and we totally sympathise with them. We feel things could have been averted to some extent by professional handling on part of the airline, and pre-emptive action taken once the first signs of the problem came to light.”

The tour operator said he foresaw a week of “massive customer satisfaction issues”, and pointed out that travel agents had been made “scapegoats” by tourists pushing the fraternity to negotiate best with service providers.

Abhijit Patil of Raja Rani Travels also felt that Indigo and other entities could have handled the issue better. “Even the ministry of civil aviation could have stepped in much earlier,” he said. ““I have seen that in Delhi’s Aerocity, tourists are being charged ₹30,000 to ₹40,000 per day by hotels. The travel fraternity has been left to fend for itself.”

Indigo has three flights from Mumbai to Nagpur. A lot of tourists who come to visit the Tadoba Andhari Tiger reserve travel via Nagpur Airport. Prabhunath Shukla, director of the tiger reserve, said that a few cancellations had happened as tourists could not reach.