A significant technical failure at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport created massive disruptions across India's aviation network, affecting hundreds of flights and thousands of passengers over multiple days.
Minister's Emergency Visit to ATC Tower
Union Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu made an emergency visit to the Air Traffic Control tower at Delhi airport on Saturday to personally assess the situation. The minister was accompanied by Civil Aviation Secretary Samir Kumar Sinha and Airports Authority of India Chairman Vipin Kumar during this crucial review of flight operations.
Following his inspection, Minister Naidu directed officials to conduct a detailed root-cause analysis to determine the exact reasons behind the system failure. He emphasized the need to prevent such incidents from recurring in the future.
Massive Flight Disruptions Across India
The technical glitch, which first appeared on the afternoon of November 6, was only fully resolved by Saturday afternoon, creating a cascade of delays and cancellations throughout the country's aviation system.
Official reports confirmed that more than 600 flights experienced delays while 46 flights were completely cancelled due to the system failure. The problem originated in the ATC messaging system managed by the Airports Authority of India's Air Navigation Services with support from the Electronics Corporation of India Limited.
Gradual Return to Normal Operations
By Saturday, flight operations showed signs of improvement but passengers continued to face challenges. Data from Flightradar24 indicated that departing flights were experiencing average delays exceeding 30 minutes throughout the day.
During the crisis period, airport authorities implemented manual operations for the ATC messaging system to maintain flight safety standards and minimize passenger inconvenience. The system was restored to full automatic mode by Saturday afternoon, according to official statements.
Minister Naidu acknowledged the efforts of engineers and ATC staff who worked overnight to resolve the technical issues. Following his late-night review at the Delhi ANS Centre on Friday, the minister had instructed ECIL to deploy additional technical personnel and directed AAI to position more ATC staff for manual operations.
The aviation minister has now ordered officials to explore technological upgrades and redundancy mechanisms, including fallback servers, to strengthen India's air traffic control infrastructure and prevent similar disruptions in the future.
