Domino Effect For IndiGo? Airline Likely To Cancel Over 30 Flights Today, Days After Hailstorm Hits North India

Gurgaon-headquartered airline IndiGo continued to cancel various domestic flights across the country on Sunday (10 February) after a hailstorm in north India is said to have “badly disrupted” flight operations, India Today reports.

Airport officials said that the budget airline had cancelled 15 flights on Saturday (9 February) and seven on Sunday (10 February). “The airline has been facing problems in crew management. Therefore, these flights - which had to depart from Delhi yesterday and today - were cancelled,” one of the airport officials said.

A company issued statement said that while many flights were cancelled on 7 February, 11 flights had to be diverted. As per reports, Indigo is likely to cancel over 30 flights today (11 February) as well.

“Due to a severe hailstorm in North India on Thursday (7 February), 11 IndiGo flights were diverted. Consequently, this disrupted operations across our network the following day,” PTI reported Indigo in a statement.

The statement adds that to recover the schedule, the crew and aircrafts had to be re-positioned, resulting in many flights being cancelled. IndiGo airlines is the largest airline in the domestic market in India. In 2018, the airlines flew around 43 per cent of passengers.

The Bengaluru airport officials told PTI that about 16 flights of the airline were cancelled on Sunday (10 February).

Operations in the Delhi airport were also disrupted on 7 February. A total of 36 flights had to be diverted to various neighbouring cities between 6 pm and 8.45 pm as the national capital was hit by severe rain and hailstorm. The 36 flights were not limited to Indigo airlines.

Operations of smaller aircraft like the Bombardier and ATR were also suspended for some time due to strong winds on Thursday (7 February).