IndiGo reports flight delays, cancellations

BENGALURU, Dec 3: India’s largest airline IndiGo said on Wednesday it has faced delays and cancellations in recent days due to technology issues, airport congestion and what it termed “operational requirements”.

Roughly 40 IndiGo flights had been cancelled so far in Delhi on Wednesday, according to two airport sources.

The sources and an IndiGo pilot, all requesting confidentiality, said the airline was facing crew shortages, which two of them attributed to new pilot duty time limitations that took effect in recent months.

“Our teams are working diligently to ensure that operations normalise as soon as possible,” an IndiGo spokesperson said in a statement, without providing details of the reasons for the delays and cancellations.
IndiGo’s shares closed down about 2% after its statement was released, having gained nearly 23% so far this year.

ON-TIME PERFORMANCE LOWEST AMONG INDIAN AIRLINES ON TUESDAY

IndiGo had an on-time performance of just 35% on Tuesday, according to data from the civil aviation ministry, the lowest of all Indian airlines. Its on-time performance this year has typically been above 80% at major Indian airports.

In total around 700 flights were delayed as of 1025 GMT on Wednesday across India’s three busiest airports – Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru – with Delhi accounting for more than two-thirds of the delays, according to data from Flightradar24.

The disruptions follow an air traffic control system outage at India’s capital airport that delayed hundreds of flights for several airlines last month.
IndiGo and other global carriers also had to fix a software glitch on 200 Airbus A320 planes on Saturday.

‘OPERATIONAL CHALLENGES’

On Wednesday, Delhi Airport said in a post on X that some domestic airlines were experiencing “operational challenges”, which could lead to delays or schedule changes.

IndiGo, which has a domestic market share of more than 60%, operates over 2,200 flights daily and has been steadily expanding internationally, challenging rival Air India’s dominance.

But its results have come under pressure in the last two quarters due to a strong U.S. dollar and as flyer sentiment took a hit after a deadly Air India crash in June.