Air travelers across India have been facing severe difficulties for the past two days as Indigo, one of the country’s largest private airlines, was forced to cancel more than 200 flights due to multiple technical issues and staff shortages.
The sudden disruptions threw airport operations into chaos across several states, leaving passengers stranded in long queues for hours.
According to reports, Indigo’s flights were most affected on December 3 and 4. On Wednesday alone, around 200 flights were cancelled, with the airline citing technical glitches and staff shortages at several airports as the primary reasons.
Passengers in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka faced major challenges during check-in and boarding, prompting several airlines to initiate manual check-in procedures on an emergency basis.
At Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, a system malfunction early in the day caused significant slowdowns in the check-in process, affecting flights operated by Indigo, SpiceJet, Akasa Air and Air India Express.
The airport authority posted on X (formerly Twitter) that its teams were working closely with all stakeholders to restore normal operations and reduce passenger inconvenience.
Passengers at Varanasi Airport were informed that the IT system had been affected due to an alleged global Microsoft Windows outage.
However, Microsoft later denied these claims, confirming that there were no issues with Windows. Since flight operations, check-in facilities and other airport services heavily rely on Windows systems, the malfunction disrupted the entire operational flow.
A similar situation unfolded at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, where long queues formed and several passengers missed their flights due to delays in the check-in process.
An Indigo spokesperson stated that technical faults, heavy passenger load at airports, and operational reasons led to significant delays in departures, while cancellation of some flights became unavoidable.
