The operational inconvenience continues for India's one of the premium carriers, IndiGo, as the airline witnessed
cancellations of 550 flights across the nation on Thursday. Of the total flights, at least 191 flights were cancelled in
Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and Hyderabad, leading to chaos at the airports. The carrier has issued a statement on the
"The last two days have seen widespread disruption across IndiGo’s network and operations. We extend a heartfelt apology
to all our customers and industry stakeholders who have been impacted by these events. IndiGo teams are working
diligently and making all efforts with the support of MOCA, DGCA, BCAS, AAI and airport operators to reduce the
cascading impact of these delays and restore normalcy. We continue to keep our customers apprised of any changes to
their scheduled flights and advise them to check the latest status," IndiGo said.
IndiGo, one of the largest carriers in the country, is grappling with significant operational disruptions in the past
few days, and more than 300 flights were cancelled on Thursday, while scores of flights were delayed. In November, the
airline witnessed the cancellation of 1,232 flights and severe delays in many flights.
Following the drop in performance, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) decided to launch a probe. It asked
the airline to cite reasons behind the drastic decline in operations.
The civil aviation body asked the airline to cite appropriate reasons behind the rapid flight cancellations and the
delays that occurred throughout the month of November.
In response to that, the carrier referred to a number of reasons, including staff shortage, failure in Air Traffic
Control (ATC), and others behind the cancellations and drop in performance.
"Out of those 1,232 flights, 755 were cancelled because of staff shortages, 92 were cancelled due to the failure of Air
Traffic Control (ATC), 258 were cancelled due to airport restrictions, and 127 were cancelled for other reasons," the
airlines noted. The aviation body suggested a handful of key measures, including hiring more crews and others to improve
The rapid inconvenience resulted in massive crowd dissatisfaction among passengers who shared their experience on social
Meanwhile, the CEO of IndiGo, Pieter Elbert, shared an apology note in an internal email, shared with the employees. He
mentioned the reasons behind the operational delays and cancellations. The email went viral on social media.
"We serve close to 380,000 customers a day and want each of them to have a good experience. We could not live up to that
promise these past days, and we have publicly apologised for that," he said.
"An accumulation of several operational challenges, including minor technology glitches, schedule changes, adverse
weather conditions, heightened congestion in the aviation ecosystem, and the implementation of the FDTL norms,
compounded negatively to create a cascading impact on our operations," he wrote.