IndiGo cancels 47 flights after DGCA grounds planes with faulty engines

Agencies

March 13, 2018

Mumbai, Mar 13: Budget carrier IndiGo has cancelled as many as 47 flights on Tuesday after the country's aviation regulator DGCA grounded its eight A320Neo planes with faulty Pratt & Whitney engines, along with three such aircraft of GoAir.

IndiGo has cancelled 47 flights across its domestic network on March 13, the airline announced on its website.

The flights that have been cancelled are from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Patna, Srinagar, Bhubaneswar, Amritsar, Srinagar and Guwahati, among others.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation ( DGCA) cracked the whip after an IndiGo flight bound for Lucknow returned to Ahmedabad within 40 minutes of its getting airborne due to a mid-air engine failure on Monday.

Citing safety of aircraft operations, the Director of the DGCA, in the March 12 order, said that A320 Neos fitted with PW1100 engines beyond ESN 450 have been grounded with immediate effect.

Three other IndiGo A320Neo planes have been on the ground since February following similar engine problems.

Yesterday, hundreds of passengers were stranded across the country as dozens of flights were cancelled by IndiGo and GoAir following the grounding of 11 planes.

IndiGo operates about 1,000 flights daily.

IndiGo carries about 40 percent of domestic flyers, while GoAir has a market share of around 10 percent.

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IndiGo CEO says less than 1,000 cancellations on Dec 6; normalcy by Dec 15

News Network

December 5,2025

New Delhi, Dec 5: IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers issued a public apology this evening after more than a thousand flights were cancelled today, making it the "most severely impacted day" in terms of cancellations. The biggest airline of the country cancelled "more than half" of its daily number of flights on Friday, said Elbers. He also said that even though the crisis will persist on Saturday, the airline anticipates fewer than 1,000 flight cancellations.

"Full normalisation is expected between December 10 and 15, though IndiGo cautions that recovery will take time due to the scale of operations," the IndiGo CEO said.

IndiGo operates around 2,300 domestic and international flights daily.

Pieter Elbers, while apologising for the major inconvenience due to delays and cancellations, said the situation is a result of various causes.

The crisis at IndiGo stems from new regulations that boost pilots' weekly rest requirements by 12 hours to 48 and allow only two night-time landings per week, down from six. IndiGo has attributed the mass cancellations to "misjudgment and planning gaps".

Elbers also listed three lines of action that the airline will adopt to address the issue.

"Firstly, customer communication and addressing your needs, for this, messages have been sent on social media. And just now, a more detailed communication with information, refunds, cancellations and other customer support measures was sent," he said.

The airline has also stepped up its call centre capacity.

"Secondly, due to yesterday's situation, we had customers stranded mostly at the nation's largest airports. Our focus was for all of them to be able to travel today itself, which will be achieved. For this, we also ask customers whose flights are cancelled not to come to the airports as notifications are sent," the CEO said.

"Thirdly, cancellations were made for today to align our crew and planes to be where they need to start tomorrow morning afresh. Earlier measures of the last few days, regrettable, have proven not to be enough, but we have decided today to reboot all our systems and schedules, resulting in the highest numbers of cancellations so far, but imperative for progressive improvements starting from tomorrow," he added.

As airports witnessed chaotic scenes, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stepped in to grant IndiGo a temporary exemption from stricter night duty rules for pilots. It also allowed substitution of leaves with a weekly rest period.

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu has said a high-level inquiry will be ordered and accountability will be fixed.

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