IndiGo Flight Cancellations: IndiGo is witnessing massive flight delays and cancellations due to technology issues, airport congestion, and operational requirements. The disruption has left thousands of passengers stranded at airports.
On Wednesday, multiple airports, including Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, reported almost 200 flight cancellations till the afternoon. According to news agency PTI, at least 38 flights were cancelled at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, while over 70 flights were cancelled from Bengaluru and Mumbai airports.
Additionally, as many as 19 IndiGo flights, both arrivals and departures, were cancelled in Hyderabad. Twenty IndiGo flights were also cancelled at Bengaluru on Tuesday. Passengers at the airport have complained about severe delays, between one to three hours, in IndiGo flights over the past week.
Government data showed that only 35% of the airline’s flights were on time on December 2, and 49.5% were on time on December 1.
In a statement, the airline apologised for the widespread inconvenience and said its teams were working to restore normal operations swiftly.
“We have had several unavoidable flight delays and some cancellations in the past few days due to various reasons, including technology issues, airport congestion, and operational requirements," an IndiGo spokesperson said.
The airline added that it is offering alternate flight options or refunds for affected passengers.
“Our teams are working diligently to ensure that operations normalise as soon as possible… We regret the inconvenience caused to our valued customers due to these disruptions."
Passengers have been urged to check their flight status before heading to the airport.
“We request customers to check the latest flight status… to help us minimise inconvenience," the spokesperson said.
The airline is facing a severe pilot shortage ever since the new flight duty time limitation (FDTL) norms became applicable last month, which lays out more humane rostering for crew.
“IndiGo has been facing acute crew shortage since the implementation of the second phase of the FDTL norms, leading to cancellations and huge delays in its operations across the airports," a source told PTI.
The latest flight duty time limitation norms, which entail increased weekly rest periods to 48 hours, extension of night hours, and limiting the number of night landings to only two as against six earlier, were initially opposed by IndiGo and Air India.
But they were subsequently rolled out by the DGCA following the Delhi High Court’s directives, albeit after a delay of over one year and in a phased manner and with certain variations to airlines.
The Gurugram-based airline currently operates around 2,100 domestic and international flights and a significant chunk of them into night.
As on December 2, IndiGo had a total of 416 planes in the fleet with 366 of them in operations and 50 on ground, up from 47 last month, as per aircraft fleet tracking website Planespotter.com.
