Thousands of IndiGo passengers flying in and out of the city were stranded on Wednesday as the airline’s operations collapsed across its network because of a pilot shortage.
Civil aviation ministry sources said IndiGo operates over 2,200 flights a day. In Calcutta, the airline runs 248 of the 340 daily domestic arrivals and departures.
Between midnight and 8pm on Wednesday, 15 IndiGo flights were cancelled at Calcutta airport — six arrivals and nine departures — while more than 130 flights were delayed till late evening, officials said. The delays and cancellations continued into the night.
The crisis left travellers scrambling for alternatives. A woman flying from Nagpur to Calcutta reached the airport at 6am for her 7.30am flight, only to be told it had been cancelled. “The airline rebooked her on a Thursday flight via Bengaluru, but that, too, was later cancelled,” her travel agent said. She eventually paid ₹22,000 for an Air India Express ticket via Bengaluru — over four times her original ₹5,000 IndiGo fare.
A Calcutta businessman faced a similar ordeal in Varanasi. Scheduled to return by an IndiGo flight at 11.55am, he arrived at the airport at 10am and was informed it had been cancelled. “Those at the counter could not provide any information about rebooking,” he told Metro. Needing to return urgently, he hired a car for ₹25,000 to travel back to Calcutta.
Airport officials said problems had begun on Tuesday. “On Tuesday, 18 IndiGo flights — nine arrivals and nine departures — were cancelled. But the impact was huge on Wednesday,” an official said.
Sources attributed the disruption to a shortage of pilots after the directorate general of civil aviation’s new flight duty time limitation (FDTL) rules, effective from November, introduced “more humane rostering for the crew”.
In a statement on Wednesday evening, the airline said: “We acknowledge that IndiGo’s operations have been significantly disrupted across the network for the past two days, and we sincerely apologize to our customers.”
It cited multiple “unforeseen operational challenges”. “...minor technology glitches, schedule changes linked to the winter season, adverse weather conditions, increased congestion in the aviation system and the implementation of updated crew rostering rules had a negative compounding impact on our operations in a way that was not feasible to be anticipated,” it stated.
To stabilise operations, the airline said it has made “calibrated adjustments” to its schedules for the next 48 hours. “These measures will allow us to normalise operations and progressively recover our punctuality across the network,” a spokesperson said, adding that affected fliers were being offered alternative travel arrangements or refunds.
But tour operators said thousands remained stranded and criticised IndiGo for poor communication. “Many reached the airport only to learn their flights were cancelled. They were helpless,” said Anjani Dhanuka, chairman of the Travel Agents Association of India (eastern region). “IndiGo didn’t stop accepting bookings till the last moment. They should have communicated properly and stopped taking bookings until the problem was resolved.”