At least 150 IndiGo flights were canceled while several others faced delays and disruptions on Wednesday after the low-cost carrier experienced one of its worst operational disruptions in recent memory. Turbulence – largely fueled by crew shortages – continued into Thursday morning, with many passengers venting their frustration on social media.
A social media user who goes by the name Shubham Sharma captured the chaotic scenes at the Pune airport where passengers are desperately waiting for their flight. “My Indigo flight from Pune to Delhi is delayed by more than 3.5 hours. Many flyers are waiting at the airport for more than 12 hours,” he wrote.
Sanjay Kalirona, CEO of Gizmoreindia, revealed that his IndiGo flight 6409 from Pune to Delhi was scheduled to take off at 2:45 AM but had not taken off by 9:30 AM this morning. “My daughter has been sitting on the plane for 2 hours. She wasn’t feeling well, so she came home. The airport is total chaos,” he added.
Another flyer drew attention to the skyrocketing prices of other airlines. IndiGo flights have been canceled and other carriers have reportedly increased their fares to take advantage. “Delhi-Mumbai costs the same as Delhi-London. Indigo is refunding the amount. If you had important work in Mumbai, that’s your problem,” wrote a third user.
Anand Sridharan, an investor at Nalanda Capital, reported that his 7am IndiGo flight was delayed indefinitely because the captain was missing.
“Officially the flight is on time on board. Staff say the captain is missing so the flight is delayed indefinitely,” Sridharan wrote on social media platform X. “Passengers are screaming. Others are filming the screams and posting them on social media.”
He said the captain was found after about 30 minutes, but by then the first mate had gone missing, causing further delays.
IndiGo is responding
IndiGo apologized for the chaos and said it had started making “calibrated adjustments” to its flight schedules. Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said it is looking into IndiGo’s widespread disruptions and has asked the airline to provide a report outlining the reasons behind the situation.
IndiGo flight cancelled: What triggered the chaos?
According to an airline spokesperson, IndiGo’s operations have been “significantly disrupted across the network” for the past two days due to a number of issues such as technical glitches, inclement weather, increased congestion and the implementation of updated Flight Time Limits (FDTLs) that came into effect in November.
The problem was compounded by an urgent Airbus A320 software patch that affected several IndiGo flights during the previous weekend (November 29-30), further straining operations already struggling with new FDTL-related schedule management requirements.
