December 31, 2025
IndiGo has revised and increased allowances for its pilots by up to ₹2,000, with the changes taking effect from January 1, according to sources. The move comes weeks after the airline faced widespread flight disruptions triggered by pilot rostering issues.
The disruptions were largely attributed to inadequate preparedness in implementing the revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) norms, which restrict the number of night landings a pilot can undertake. These changes reportedly forced IndiGo to cancel over 1,600 flights in a single day earlier this month.
In response to the new regulations, which require more pilots for night operations, the airline has enhanced several allowance categories. The revised allowances—ranging from ₹25 to ₹2,000—cover domestic layovers, night operations, deadhead duties, and a newly introduced tail-swap allowance. Tail-swap refers to replacing a scheduled aircraft with another aircraft.
Sources said the tail-swap allowance was not available earlier and has been introduced as part of the latest revision. IndiGo has not issued an official statement on the matter.
Under the new structure, a captain on a domestic layover of 10.01 to 24 hours will receive ₹3,000, up from ₹2,000. For first officers, the allowance has been raised to ₹1,500 from ₹1,000. Beyond 24 hours, captains will now earn ₹150 per additional hour, while first officers will get ₹75 per hour, up from ₹100 and ₹50 respectively.
Night allowances per hour have been increased to ₹2,000 for captains and ₹1,000 for first officers. Deadhead allowance per scheduled block hour has also gone up—to ₹4,000 from ₹3,000 for captains and to ₹2,000 from ₹1,500 for first officers. Meal allowance during transit for captains has doubled to ₹1,000.
However, sources noted that the latest increase recovers only about 25 per cent of the allowances that were cut following the implementation of the second phase of the FDTL norms in November.
Following the recent operational disruptions, aviation regulator DGCA directed IndiGo to reduce its winter flight schedule by 10 per cent. As per government data shared in Parliament, IndiGo employed 5,085 pilots as of December 8.
Source: PTI