DUBAI (The Thursday Times) — India’s struggling budget airline SpiceJet has cancelled flights from Dubai International Airport after check-in services for its passengers were suspended over unpaid dues, according to reports in India.
The dues, owed to Dubai Airports and its ground-handling partner dnata, amount to about 14 million dirhams, or roughly Rs35.8 crore, the reports said, citing internal emails. No payment had been received since October 13, and the airline was warned on November 9 that check-in would stop from November 12 unless the amount was cleared, according to the reports. Neither the airport nor the airline has confirmed the figure.
On Thursday, only two of SpiceJet’s six Dubai departures, to Ahmedabad and Delhi, were allowed to check in passengers, because they had been scheduled to leave before the suspension took effect. Flights to Amritsar, Jaipur, Mumbai, and Delhi were cancelled and flown out empty as ferry flights. No SpiceJet flight left Dubai for India on Friday, one report said.
Dubai’s civil aviation authority summoned the airline’s station manager over its failure to tell passengers about the cancellations, and directed it to arrange alternative flights, hotels, and transport for those left stranded, according to the reports.
“We are in the process of resolving the matter with the concerned authorities. We have adequate bank guarantee cover in place and are working to ensure that the issue is sorted out at the earliest,” a SpiceJet spokesperson said.
An airline in retreat
Dubai is SpiceJet’s only remaining international destination. The airline flew about 75 flights a week on the route a few months ago, but its operations there have since halved, and by this week it was down to six flights a day, an airline source told one report.
At home, its share of India’s domestic market fell to 0.6% in September, when it carried about 730,000 passengers, down from 5.9 million in January, according to figures from India’s civil aviation regulator. Indian airports have also refused clearance to several of its flights over unpaid fees, and it has been paying charges before each departure, according to reports.
SpiceJet’s board will meet on November 18 to consider raising fresh capital through shares and other instruments. The airline has also yet to publish its results for the last quarter of the 2025–26 financial year and the first two quarters of 2026–27, and has said it will file them after a warning from the stock exchange, according to reports.
