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 basis generally refers to a method in the airline and travel industry where revenue, miles, or costs are recognised only after a flight has actually taken place.
However, Kabra signalled that the disruption is not fully behind the sector. “While the situation has now stabilised, complete supply recovery is likely to get pushed out into the next fiscal year,” he said.
Meanwhile, Magow added that near-term recovery would remain muted. “It (air travel bookings) should be back to the positive zone, albeit at a flat or a one or two percent YoY positive growth,” he said, noting that a clearer picture would emerge in the April-June 2026 quarter, once summer schedules are filed.
Did the flight disruption spill over into hotels?
Analysts pressed MakeMyTrip on whether the December aviation disruption had knock-on effects on hotels and packages, despite strong headline growth in the segment. “Flights is a lead indicator,” Kabra said. “For most Indians, they start with a flight booking. And then everything else follows.”
Even as the Q3FY26 quarter as a whole remained strong, hotel momentum softened in December 2025 on the back of flight disruptions. “December was a month of much slower growth for us,” Kabra said.
Asked whether hotel volumes would have been higher without the disruption, he added, “It would have helped, but I think given the circumstances, the hotel growth was very, very encouraging.”
How did MakeMyTrip absorb the disruption?
MakeMyTrip executives pointed to a combination of diversification in terms of travel modes, and demand creation in advance to explain why the disruption did not derail the company’s Q3FY26 quarter.
Magow said the company was able to redirect some travel demand to alternative transport modes. “While domestic air [travel] was impacted in December, we were able to capture some of this demand on other means of transport like bus and cabs,” he said.
Furthermore, Kabra pointed to advance demand creation through a festival travel sale earlier in the quarter. “It helped us build significant advanced purchase behaviour, particularly for the upcoming peak holiday travel in December. It also helped us mitigate the impact from the low light of the quarter, which was the disruption of flight operations, particularly during the first fortnight of the December month,” he said.
At the same time, a reduction in GST on hotel rooms priced below Rs 7,500 boosted price-sensitive leisure demand, helping sustain hotel volumes even as flight-led travel slowed.
Financial snapshot of Q3FY26
From a financial standpoint, MakeMyTrip reported gross bookings of $2.78 billion, up by 6.6.% YoY. Meanwhile, adjusted operating profit rose to $50.7 million, compared with $46 million a year earlier. Also, adjusted net profit increased to $51.4 million, up 14.4% YoY.
Segment-wise:
- Air ticketing revenue declined 2.1% YoY to $60.1 million, reflecting December’s disruption.
- Hotels and packages revenue grew 9.7% YoY to $161.4 million.
- Bus ticketing revenue increased 16.5% YoY to $37.1 million.
- Notably, the “Others” segment, which includes ancillaries, saw revenue jump 37% to $37.1 million.
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