Explained: Why Over 100 IndiGo Flights Were Cancelled in a Single Day
Over 100 IndiGo flights were cancelled in a single day due to new pilot duty rules, system glitches, winter weather, and air-traffic congestion. Here’s a detailed look at what caused the massive disruption across India’s major airports.
Passengers wait in long queues at Mumbai’s T2 terminal as IndiGo cancels over 100 flights amid crew shortages, tech glitches, and winter congestion.
India's largest airline IndiGo, however, faced one of the most serious operational disruptions of the year and this resulted in flight cancellations exceeding 100 and major delays covering almost all airports on both Tuesday and Wednesday. The extremely busy and frustrated passengers even more so in those cases when they had to wait for their flights in terminals turned chaos into a common scene.
The airline states that most factors contributing to the chaos include new pilot roster rules, small technical glitches, problems related to winter and increased air traffic congestion which was the situation before.
What Was the Reason for Such a Huge Disruption?
IndiGo on Wednesday was kind enough to inform us about their problems through a statement which read that the company's disruptions were caused by the flight duty time limitations (FDTL) changes, bad winter weather, small technological failures, and the seasonal network congestion in the aviation sector.
Moreover, the company expects that the operations will be normal within 48 hours as it has already modified the schedule to lessen the impact.
IndiGo made a statement: "Our teams are working day and night to make it easier for customers." The company also informed that customers whose flights had been affected were being offered alternate flights or refunds.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation verified that IndiGo had detailed its reply to its inquiry about the cancellations.
How Many Flights Were Affected?
IndiGo had to cancel 1,232 flights in November alone, which was a very high number compared to the usual cancellations.
The following is the breakdown of cancellations in November:
- 755 flights due to crew/FDTL limits
- 92 flights attributed to ATC-related matters
- 258 flights due to airport or airspace restrictions
- 127 flights due to other operational issues
Consequently, the carrier's on-time performance rating fell from 84.1% in October to 67.7% in November and then even further, according to government data released on Tuesday—the figure had reached just 35%, meaning more than 1,400 flights were delayed within just one day.
What About the Pilot and Crew Shortage?
The disruption is very much related to the enforcement of stricter-duty-time rules which started from November 1. The new DGCA regulations restrict pilots' flying hours and require longer resting times.
These are the main features of the new rules:
- Maximum of 8 flying hours per day
- 35 hours a week
- 125 hours per month
- 1,000 hours/year
- Moreover, the crews have to take rest equal to twice their duty hours but there is still a minimum of 10 hours of rest allowed for any 24-hour period.
Easing of regulation has led to reduction of crew availability to a great extent and this has caused scheduling problems everywhere.
What About the Tech Glitches?
Failures of check-in and departure control systems were experienced on Tuesday at airports like Delhi, Pune, and Bengaluru. The following occurred as a result:
- Passengers waiting in front of the counters in long lines
- Passenger processing taking longer time
- Major delays not only for IndiGo but also for other airlines
- Winter Weather and Air-Traffic Congestion Adding Pressure
The winter months are more or less synonymous with the aviation industry being under tremendous pressure in the following ways:
- High number of passengers
- Fog making it difficult to see especially at night
- Major congestion at the airports in metropolitan cities during rush hour
- IndiGo which has a daily operation of over 2,200 flights was the worst hit as the day went on with delays piling up
