Delhi Airspace Restrictions Hit Flights Jan 21 to 26

Published on Jan 14, 2026, 9:09 am CST

6 min read

Key points

Delhi airspace restrictions are expected to reduce or pause flight movements during a daily midday NOTAM window from January 21, 2026, through January 26, 2026
Multiple outlets report different daily closure times, so travelers should treat the window as changeable and watch airline retimings closely
The restriction stacks on North India winter fog patterns, increasing misconnect risk for domestic banks and afternoon long haul departures
Expect knock on delays to spread into later departure waves as aircraft and crews fall out of sequence across North India rotations
Tight international connections via Delhi are most exposed, especially separate ticket itineraries and same day domestic to international chains

Impact

Midday Capacity Reduction: A daily restricted window can force retimings, holding, or cancellations that ripple into the rest of the day
Higher Misconnect Risk: Short connections at Delhi become riskier as arrival banks slide and reaccommodation space tightens
Network Recovery Pressure: Aircraft and crew displacement can push delays into later waves at other large Indian hubs
Hotel And Ground Transport Demand: More overnight stays near the airport are likely when onward flights move past practical same day options
Customer Service Load: Airline call centers and airport desks can clog as travelers rebook around a known multi day constraint

Airspace restrictions tied to Republic Day security and flypast rehearsals are expected to interrupt normal flight flows around Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL) on multiple days from Wednesday, January 21, 2026, through Monday, January 26, 2026. Travelers connecting via Delhi are the most exposed, because even a short pause in movements at a mega hub can break tightly timed domestic to international handoffs. The practical move is to assume your schedule may shift in the late morning and early afternoon, then decide now whether you can absorb that risk with a bigger buffer, or whether you should proactively rebook around the restricted window.

Most reporting describes a daily midday window that effectively halts, or heavily throttles, takeoffs and landings at Delhi, but there are meaningful differences across outlets on the exact times. Several reports cite a 145 minute window from 1020 a.m. to 1245 p.m. local time each day from January 21 to January 26. A separate Hindustan Times report, citing two NOTAMs, describes 1000 a.m. to 1215 p.m. from January 21 to January 25, then longer suspension windows on January 26, plus an additional restriction date on January 29. Treat that discrepancy as the point, not a footnote, because it is exactly how travelers get trapped by a "known" closure that turns out to be slightly different on their travel day.

Who Is Affected

Travelers transiting Delhi during the late morning to early afternoon bank are most likely to feel the impact, especially itineraries that rely on a short connection from an inbound domestic flight to an onward international departure. Midday is also when a large hub often pivots from morning domestic arrivals into afternoon departures, so even one constrained window can push a wave of aircraft out of sequence and force later retimings across the day.

Passengers traveling on separate tickets are at elevated financial and logistical risk. If your inbound flight to Delhi is delayed into the restricted window and you miss a separate ticket onward leg, you can lose fare value, and you can be forced into last minute buy ups in an already constrained reaccommodation market.

Travelers heading to other Indian hubs later in the day can also be indirectly affected. When aircraft that should have rotated through Delhi arrive late, or cannot depart as scheduled, later day waves at airports such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad can inherit the disruption via aircraft swaps, crew legality limits, and late inbound equipment, even if those airports are not directly under the airspace restriction.

What Travelers Should Do

If you connect via Delhi between roughly 930 a.m. and 200 p.m. local time on January 21 to January 26, 2026, assume schedule churn. Pull up your booking now, turn on airline notifications, and check whether your carrier has already retimed your flights to avoid the window. If your itinerary includes a same ticket international connection under three hours, treat it as fragile during this period, and look for a same day option that lands earlier, or departs later, with more slack.

Use a clear decision threshold for rebooking versus waiting. If your onward flight is long haul, has limited daily frequency, or missing it would force an overnight anyway, rebook proactively around the restricted window rather than gambling on day of operations. If you have multiple later departures that still get you to your destination same day, and your connection buffer is already generous, you can wait longer and monitor whether your specific flights are retimed, or protected by an airline reaccommodation plan.

Over the next 24 to 72 hours, monitor three signals. First, whether the closure times converge across official airport and airline communications, or continue to vary, which implies updates, or multiple windows. Second, whether your airline publishes a travel advisory, waiver, or targeted retiming program for Delhi connections. Third, whether fog and low visibility periods intensify in North India mornings, because the combination of fog driven arrival rate cuts and a known midday restriction is how minor delays become multi hour cascades.

How It Works

A NOTAM, or Notice to Airmen, is a mechanism used to publish operational constraints that pilots and dispatchers must comply with, including airspace restrictions and airport movement limits. When an airspace restriction is applied around a hub, controllers may pause movements entirely, or reduce the arrival and departure rate so sharply that aircraft stack in holds, and departures queue on the ground. Even if the restricted period is limited to a couple of hours, it can remove a large number of planned slots, and the schedule rarely "catches up" the same day because runways, gates, taxiways, and crews are already fully utilized.

The first order effect hits Delhi itself. Flights planned to arrive during the window may be retimed earlier, delayed until the restriction lifts, diverted, or canceled, and departures can be pushed into a compressed post window surge that stresses gate availability and turnaround times. The second order ripple spreads through the network as rotation sequences break. A Delhi based aircraft that cannot complete a mid day leg may miss its next city pair, and that can strand passengers in secondary airports that were never part of the restriction, while also pulling spare aircraft and crews away from other routes.

Fog season increases the odds that the system enters the restricted window already behind. Dense fog can reduce safe arrival rates and trigger flow controls in the morning, which means inbound flights arrive late, the apron loads unevenly, and airlines have less flexibility to pre position aircraft and crews before the midday constraint begins. When that happens, the impact is not limited to the 145 minute window, it can show up as delay tails into evening departures, missed international onward connections, and a higher probability of unplanned hotel nights near the airport.