CHENNAI: Passengers at the city airport suffered a long wait as the Air India and IndiGo flights to Dubai, Singapore, Mumbai and Delhi were delayed for up to seven hours since Monday evening.
On Monday evening, an IndiGo flight was scheduled to depart for Dubai at 6.45 pm with 170 passengers. Initially announced as delayed due to administrative reasons, the aircraft eventually took off only at 1.30 am on Tuesday, nearly seven hours behind schedule.
Similarly, an Air India flight scheduled to depart for Singapore at 5.30 am was delayed by nearly six hours and departed at 11.30 am. Around 165 passengers booked on the Singapore flight were informed of the delay, but boarding passes had not been issued, forcing them to wait inside the terminal for several hours.
Other Air India flights from Chennai to Mumbai and Delhi also faced delays of around four hours. Passengers complained of prolonged waiting times at the airport, with limited clarity on revised departure schedules. While airlines officially cited administrative reasons for the delays, sources indicated that a shortage of pilots and aircraft engineers was a key factor behind the disruption.
In addition to operational issues, severe fog and adverse weather conditions in Delhi and several northern states further disrupted air traffic. Due to poor visibility, multiple flights were unable to land at Delhi airport and were delayed, diverted, or cancelled.
As a result, 12 outbound flights from Chennai to destinations including Delhi, Mumbai, Guwahati, Varanasi, Indore, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bangalore were cancelled on Tuesday. Seven inbound flights to Chennai from cities such as Delhi, Kolkata, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar and Hyderabad were also cancelled.