Passenger’s mobile number mandatory for booking air tickets: DGCA  

The next time you book your air tickets or ask your travel agents to do so, providing your valid mobile number and email ID is mandatory to proceed with the booking, and airlines will conduct periodic checks to check the authenticity of passenger contact information, as per the new directions of DGCA.    

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued a circular on February 9 in the aftermath of the IndiGo cancelling about 4,500 flights in December 2025 due to poor rostering and management of revised pilot duty norms.  

“It's has been observed that during recent instances of flight disruptions, several passengers did not receive timely flight-related information owing to the non-availability of their mobile numbers and email addresses in the records of the airlines. As a result, the processing of refunds and compensation arising out of flight cancellations was also delayed,” noted DGCA. 

In order to ensure effective and direct communication with passengers and to facilitate the timely processing of refunds and compensation, the DGCA directed that all passengers booking air tickets shall provide their own valid mobile number and email ID at the time of booking of air tickets, including bookings made through travel agents or other intermediaries.

The aviation regulator directed that all airlines, travel agents, online travel portals and other booking entities shall ensure strict compliance with the above direction and the practice of providing the contact details of travel agents or intermediaries in place of passenger’s personal information shall be avoided. 

“It has further come to the notice of the competent authority that, in any cases, air ticket bookings contained the contact details of travel agents or intermediaries instead of passenger's mobile numbers and email IDs, leading to miscommunication and failure in the dissemination of critical flight information to passengers,” the circular said. 

To ensure compliance of the order, the DGCA has asked airlines to take necessary measures to sensitize travel agents and intermediaries and conduct periodic checks to ensure that passenger contact details are accurately captured at the time of booking. The airlines are also advised to include the above-mentioned directions in their agreements with travel agents. 

During the month of December 2025, a total of 26,999 passenger complaints were received by Indigo, as submitted by the airline as a part of the monthly submission of traffic data to DGCA. As many as 9.82 lakh passengers were impacted in December flight cancellations by the airline.

The official data shows IndiGo spent about Rs 22.7 crore in December 2025 on refunds, alternate flights and other passenger facilitation measures.

The airline has denied that it cannot share details on how many passengers were eligible for compensation or how many have been compensated so far. However, the Delhi high court hearing a PIL has directed the airline to submit the details. The next hearing is scheduled on February 25.