Outage chaos at IGI Airport in Delhi, 400 flights affected

To combat the massive outage, airline staff were forced to resort to procedures used in the analogue days – they carried out manual check-ins, issued handwritten and stamped boarding passes, and shared flight updates with passengers using whiteboards and markers

The global IT outage caused by a faulty update on Microsoft Windows resulted in widespread disarray at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, with nearly 100 departing or arriving flights cancelled, and more than 300 delayed, leading to serpentine queues and rampant confusion for passengers.

Stranded passengers at Terminal 3. (Vipin Kumar/HT Photo)

To combat the massive outage, airline staff were forced to resort to procedures used in the analogue days – they carried out manual check-ins, issued handwritten and stamped boarding passes, and shared flight updates with passengers using whiteboards and markers.

Airlines said a massive cascade effect was seen on operations at airports across the country, not only leading to flight delays and longer waiting time at counters, but also airlines being forced to ground dozens of flights throughout the day.

The major Indian airlines impacted by the outage included IndiGo, Akasa, SpiceJet and Air India, with only manual check-ins being performed after 11am, officials said.

Lengthy queues were seen at both of IGI’s active terminals – T2 and T3 – adding to the already increasing passenger load that these terminals were bearing with Terminal-1 still out of action following a roof collapse on June 28.

At screens across IGI, the infamous Microsoft “blue screen of death” stared back at passengers, most of whom had to queue up and wait at check-in counters for hours, amid confusion.

Amit Kumar, 33, a businessman bound for Patna via a 2.20pm IndiGo flight, told HT he waited for nearly an hour-and-a-half at the check-in counter.

“The remaining security process did not take too long, but since passes were being issued manually and were handwritten, that process took ages. Even after entering the flight, the plane did not depart for at least an hour,” said Kumar. He said his flight finally took off around 4.45pm – more than two hours late. “There was complete confusion, passengers had no idea what was happening anymore. Even airline staff were not able to tell us much.”

The Delhi Airport tweeted: “Due to the global IT issue, some of the services at the Delhi Airport were temporarily impacted. We are closely working with all our stakeholders to minimise the inconvenience to our flyers.” It further asked passengers to get in touch with airlines for an updated flight status. Airlines were also using social media to update passengers about a change in flight timings.

At least 92 cancelled flights – either departing from or bound for Delhi -- were of IndiGo alone, the airline’s website showed.

To be sure, other airlines did not share the number of flights grounded due to the outage in Delhi. Officials said the total number of departing or arriving flights cancelled was well over 100.

Some flights, including a SpiceJet flight from Delhi to Darbhanga, were cancelled due to separate technical issues, even as the airline said it was minimally impacted by the outage. Ahmad Arzoo, a passenger posted on X: “Complete chaos at T3 Delhi. SpiceJet has cancelled DBR bound flight. My son is stuck there no communication from SpiceJet people how to come out from terminal.” Airport officials said, though it is a silent airport, airline staff were making announcements for passengers on their own, with whiteboards provided wherever required.

“These whiteboards were being used to share flight timings with passengers, as the normal display screens were not working properly,” said an official at the airport, who asked not to named.

Airport officials said operations were partially restored after 3.30pm, with some screens returning back to normal and some airlines able to carry out web check-ins again. However, others were still reliant on manual check-ins late into the night.

“From 3.30pm onwards, we saw partial restoration of operations, but some airlines, including IndiGo, were still doing manual check-ins till 9.30 pm. There was also the cascading effect of delayed flights, which despite partial restorations, continued till late on Friday and is likely to extend till Saturday too,” the official said.

IndiGo, which appeared to be the worst-hit airline, said it has set up a “war room” at IGI airport, with staff prioritising passengers whose departures were scheduled in the coming two hours.

SpiceJet, Akasa and Air India, in separate statements, said that Friday’s delays impacted online services through most of the day.