Flight delays persisted across India on Sunday as airlines continued to struggle with the aftermath of the Microsoft outage issue. Although no airline reported a substantial number of cancellations, delays remained widespread.
On Friday, a faulty update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike led to the outage of Microsoft apps and services worldwide for several hours. About 400 flights were cancelled in India on Friday and Saturday due to this issue, with approximately 300 of those flights operated by IndiGo.
IndiGo, India’s largest carrier, has restored its system, and therefore, there were no cancellations due to the outage on Sunday, sources said. They added that the airline expects to normalise operations within the next two days.
According to Flightradar24, at least 417 flights (305 departures and 112 arrivals) faced delays on Sunday at the Delhi International Airport, India’s busiest airport, which handles about 1,260 daily scheduled flights.
Mumbai International Airport, India’s second busiest, was also affected. A total of 430 flights (272 departures and 158 arrivals) faced delays on Sunday. The Mumbai airport handles about 870 daily scheduled flights.
According to Flightradar24, a total of 150 flights (103 departures and 49 arrivals) faced delays on Friday at the Bengaluru International Airport, which handles about 690 daily scheduled flights.
SpiceJet, Air India, and Akasa Air have stated that they have not cancelled any flights during the last three days due to the outage issue. However, the effect of the outage can easily be observed in their on-time performance on Saturday (see table).
Only about 32.7 per cent of SpiceJet flights were on time on Saturday, according to the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s data.
Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu had on Saturday morning stated that airline systems had started working normally across India by 3 PM on Saturday. There is a backlog because of disruptions on Friday, and it is getting cleared gradually, he had added.
First Published: Jul 21 2024 | 6:18 PM IST
