Over 200 flights delayed at Delhi airport after glitch in air traffic system
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The average departure delay was 55 minutes, according to data from flight tracking website Flightradar24.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEW DELHI - More than 200 flights were delayed at Delhi airport, one of the world’s busiest, after an air traffic control messaging system suffered a technical problem, India’s airport authority and a source familiar with the matter said on Nov 7.
The glitch, which delayed departures for dozens of flights by more than 30 minutes, could cascade and lead to logjams at other airports in the country.
Shares of IndiGo were down 1.5 per cent after the airline said its flight operations were affected. SpiceJet and Air India also warned of delays.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) said a technical issue in the Automatic Message Switching System, which is used to generate flight plans, forced controllers to develop them manually, leading to delays.
The problem with the system started on the evening of Nov 6, local time, the source said.
“Technical teams are working to restore the system at the earliest,” AAI said in a post on social media platform X. The agency did not respond to additional requests for comment on what caused the malfunction.
Broadcaster CNN NEWS 18 reported that the authorities were investigating if computer malware could be a cause.
The incident follows a ransomware attack in September that disrupted some of Europe’s biggest airports, knocking out automated check-in systems and affecting flights.
The latest glitch delayed about 25 flight departures on Nov 6 and more than 175 on Nov 7 at Delhi airport, the source said.
Delhi airport handles 60 to 70 aircraft movements per hour. Data from Flightradar24 showed the average departure delay was 55 minutes.
The malfunction also hit several international airlines, with an ITA Airways flight to Rome delayed by nearly two hours and a Virgin Atlantic flight to London by more than an hour.
Flights scheduled to take off between 6am and 8am (8.30am and 10.30am Singapore time) were the most affected.
Aircraft were still landing at the airport, but take-offs were disrupted, an airline source told Reuters.
The Air Traffic Control has not yet told airlines when the issue will be resolved, the source added.
Delhi airport handled about 78 million passengers in 2024, making it the ninth-busiest airport in the world, according to Airports Council International. REUTERS
