New-Delhi: India’s budget carrier IndiGo has cancelled more flights at several airports across the country, amid crew shortage leading to chaos at the airports.
This comes a day after the airline has cancelled or delayed over 200 flights. The flight operations of IndiGo, were disrupted in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and other cities, leaving thousands of passengers stranded at airports.
More than 30 IndiGo flights that were scheduled to depart from Delhi were cancelled today morning. Hyderabad also saw about 33 flight cancellations and Bengaluru said that 73 IndiGo flights had been cancelled.
Meanwhile, a meeting between DGCA and senior IndiGo officials is likely to be held in Delhi this afternoon after the airline cancelled over 100 flights on Wednesday.
The airline operates about 2,200 flights daily, acknowledged that its operations were “significantly disrupted” and “sincerely apologised” to its customers and released a statement.
“A multitude of unforeseen operational challenges, including minor technology glitches, schedule changes linked to the winter season, adverse weather conditions, increased congestion in the aviation system, and the implementation of updated crew rostering rules (Flight Duty Time Limitations), had a negative compounding impact on our operations in a way that was not feasible to be anticipated,” the airline said on Wednesday.
“To contain the disruption and restore stability, we have initiated calibrated adjustments to our schedules. These measures will remain in place for the next 48 hours and will allow us to normalise our operations and progressively recover our punctuality across the network,” IndiGo said.
The reason behind the cancellation and delay of the flights is a sharp shortage of crew, especially pilots, following the introduction of revised Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) norms in November, which increased weekly rest periods to 48 hours, extending night hours, and limiting the number of night landings to only two, as against six earlier.
