5th day of chaos: IndiGo cancels 42 flights at Pune airport; passengers stranded
According to airport authorities, 14 inbound and 28 outbound IndiGo flights were cancelled between Friday and Saturday midnight at the Pune airport, which operates within an Indian Air Force base.
Representative Image for IndiGO (PTI)
PUNE: Pune Airport witnessed significant disruptions of domestic carrier IndiGo services on Saturday, with 42 flights cancelled on the fifth day of the airline's operational challenges, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded.
According to airport authorities, 14 inbound and 28 outbound IndiGo flights were cancelled between Friday and Saturday midnight at the Pune airport, which operates within an Indian Air Force base.
The 14 cancelled inbound flights included services from Indore, Delhi, Nagpur, Guwahati, Patna, Varanasi, Chennai and Chandigarh, while 28 outbound flights to various domestic destinations were also cancelled.
"We are monitoring the situation closely, and all teams, including ground-handling agencies and security staff, were fully deployed to ensure smooth operations," a senior airport official said.
The airport administration said it is closely coordinating with airlines, ground handling agencies, Air Traffic Control, CISF and terminal service partners to manage congestion and assist affected passengers.
The continuing disruptions have resulted in hundreds of IndiGo passengers being stranded at airports across the country, with delays and cancellations affecting the airline's network for the fifth consecutive day.
IndiGo cancelled over 400 flights from four major airports -- Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad- on Saturday, a day after managing to temporarily secure major relaxations in the second phase of the court-mandated new flight duty and rest period norms for the cockpit crew, sources said.
On Friday, IndiGo cancelled over 1,000 flights from across airports.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Friday provided temporary relief to IndiGo, which is partially owned by Rahul Bhatia, by rolling back the night duty definition to 12 am-5 am from 12 am-6 am earlier, and allowing its pilots to do six night landings from two earlier, besides other relaxations.
Meanwhile, the pilots' body, Airlines' Pilots Association (ALPA) India, has taken a "strong" objection to the DGCA's "selective and unsafe" relief to IndiGo, saying that the relaxations have not just "destroyed regulatory parity but also placed millions of passengers at "heightened risk".
Following the meeting convened by the Ministry of Civil Aviation with ALPA India and other pilot associations on Friday, the ministry announced that it has decided to place the implementation of the revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) in abeyance.
