Major Disruption at Delhi's International Hub
Flight operations at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) have fully returned to normal, according to airport authorities, following a significant technical malfunction in the Air Traffic Control system that created chaos for travelers throughout Friday. The disruption, which lasted for more than 15 hours, led to massive delays and several cancellations, impacting hundreds of passengers at one of the world's busiest aviation hubs.
Technical Breakdown and Manual Intervention
The core of the problem was a failure in the Automatic Message Switching System (AMSS), a critical component that assists air traffic controllers with flight planning. The issue first emerged on the afternoon of Thursday, November 6, but escalated into a full outage around 5:45 am on Friday. This forced air traffic controllers to manually prepare flight plans, a much slower and more labor-intensive process.
In response, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) quickly deployed additional personnel to handle the manual processing of flight plans to maintain safety. The AAI, along with the original equipment manufacturer, worked tirelessly to address the IP-based system's fault. It was not until around 9 pm on Friday that the AAI officially announced the technical issue had been resolved.
Widespread Impact and Gradual Recovery
The consequences of the system failure were severe. On Friday alone, more than 800 flights were delayed, with several services being cancelled entirely. The ripple effects were still being felt on Saturday morning, with flight tracking website Flightradar24.com showing over 200 delayed arrivals and departures as the system worked through the backlog.
IndiGo, India's largest airline, confirmed on Saturday that airport and ATC teams were working on a priority basis to stabilize operations. While the systems are now functional, authorities acknowledged that some residual delays were expected as they cleared the accumulation of disrupted flight plans.
With normalcy restored, Delhi Airport took to social media platform X to announce, "All flights operations are normal at Delhi Airport. Wishing all our passengers a smooth and pleasant journey ahead!" They strongly advised passengers to stay in contact with their respective airlines for the most current flight information.
