During the Q3FY26 MakeMyTrip earnings call, company executives said that a sudden disruption in domestic aviation during December 2025 interrupted what would otherwise have been a strong peak-season quarter, with ripple effects extending beyond flights to hotel bookings and travel planning behaviour.
“Q3, which traditionally represents the high season for leisure travel in India, witnessed strong demand recovery, barring temporary disruption in December caused by new and stricter flight duty time limitation rules (FDTL) for pilots,” Rajesh Magow, Co-Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MakeMyTrip Limited, said during the earnings call. For context, FDTL rules cap how long pilots can fly and mandate minimum rest periods to prevent fatigue.
Notably, the disruption came after domestic aviation had already shown signs of recovery earlier in the quarter, with October and November 2025 witnessing robust seasonal demand. However, December marked a sharp reversal.
“Air market supply and growth bounced back on the back of robust seasonal demand in October and November,” Magow said. “However, new flight duty rules caused disruption in December, leading to daily departures degrowing (falling) in December at -5% year on year (YoY) as against expected 5% growth YoY.”
Why IndiGo’s December disruption mattered
According to MakeMyTrip, the disruption was not demand-driven but supply-led, and it was largely concentrated around IndiGo, India’s largest domestic carrier.
“This particular disruption was not even factored in. It came from nowhere,” Magow said, adding that, “The reduction of supply… largely happened with Indigo because that’s the largest airline in the market.”
To explain, the operational stress at IndiGo followed tighter enforcement of flight duty time limitation norms by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which led to widespread cancellations and delays across major domestic routes in early December. While regulators later allowed temporary relaxations to stabilise operations, capacity constraints persisted through much of the peak holiday travel month.
Elsewhere, MakeMyTrip had highlighted in its Q3FY25 earnings call that while airlines like IndiGo might seek to increase direct engagement with customers, they must also shoulder the full cost and complexity of post-sale servicing if and when large-scale disruptions occur.
What did the disruption mean for MakeMyTrip’s flight volumes?
Against this backdrop, the slowdown was visible at the industry level. MakeMyTrip said domestic air traffic for the industry grew just 0.9% YoY during the quarter.
“While the industry grew by just 0.9% year on year, we were able to deliver 2.2% growth,” Group Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at MakeMyTrip, Mohit Kabra said. Additionally, he noted that on a flown basis, MakeMyTrip’s market share increased to “just over 31% during the quarter”.
To explain, flown…
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