Domestic flight prices may increase in the upcoming April 2026 summer schedule if the suspension of IndiGo flights from December 2025 burdens capacity constraints in the upcoming operations in the Indian aviation market, according to the Aviation Market Outlook 2026 by analyst firm Cirium.
Explaining the industry outlook on February 4, 2026, Richard Evans, Senior Consultant, Cirium Ascend Consultancy, said that growth in Indian aviation is expected to decline in April 2026 due to IndiGo flight cancellations.
The expert also said that if the “schedule collapse” effect continues this year and means a year-on-year (year-on-year) decline in operating capacity, then the move is likely to lead to an increase in domestic ticket prices.
“So India is currently down for April, and that’s the biggest extent because of the collapse of the Indigo schedule that we’ve seen before Christmas. So they’ve had, they’ve had to reduce their capacity and I don’t know how long that’s going to continue if capacity in India is actually going down year-on-year. Yeah, the market isn’t growing, but you can imagine prices in India are going to go up.”
Is Indian aviation capacity decreasing?
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) of the Ministry of Civil Aviation has imposed 10% operational restrictions on the fleet of India’s largest air carrier, IndiGo, resulting in a potential ripple effect in operational and capacity plans until 2026.
While experts have predicted that the domestic aviation sector will grow at a rate of nearly 10% annually over the next decade, capacity is now shrinking year-on-year (YoY).
“India has experienced tremendously strong growth over the past few years. In our Cirium Forecast published in October 2025, we predict that India will grow at around 10% per annum over the next decade,” said Richard Evans.
The aviation analyst also mentioned that Cirium is forecasting a 2% year-on-year decline in the April 2026 summer schedule compared to their year-ago numbers if the impact of the IndiGo disruption prevails.
“India is actually cutting the April 2026 plan, which is 2% less than April 2025,” the expert said.
IndiGo lost market share
Mint had earlier reported that IndiGo lost 4% of its domestic market share in December following massive flight disruptions in December 2025 due to updated government norms for flight services.
IndiGo’s market share fell to 59.6% in December 2025 compared to 63.6% market share in November 2025, according to monthly traffic data from the DGCA.
In December, IndiGo experienced an operational meltdown when more than 4,500 flights were cancelled, leaving thousands of passengers stranded at the country’s airports. So far, the airline is still recovering from the FDLT standard update as management steers operations back on track amid high demand for air travel.
