New Delhi: India’s largest airline IndiGo has so far cancelled nearly 300 flights due to the global outage faced by services provider Microsoft Friday, which disrupted the worldwide aviation network. The airline said that it has set up war rooms at the four metro airports and is prioritising passengers who have departures in the next 120 minutes. IndiGo operates about 2,000 flights daily.
“IndiGo is currently experiencing delays and cancellations due to global outages faced by its cloud server software and software provider. This outage, which began on July 19, 2024, has severely disrupted airline operations by impacting critical systems used for flight operations, passenger check-in, and baggage handling,” it said in a statement.
It noted that airlines, airports and other transport systems across the world are facing similar issues.
It added that following rapid steps taken by IndiGo teams to switch to manual or backup systems, operations at major Indian airports, including Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, “are now under control” amid the widespread disruptions caused by the software outage.
It said that additional measures have been put in place to manage the situation effectively and customers on cancelled flights are being advised to not reach the airports, and being offered alternate means where possible.
“The airline is closely monitoring the situation and any further decisions regarding flight operations will be made based on updates from its cloud service provider. A dedicated team has been deployed to address these technical challenges and minimize disruptions,” the airline said.
IndiGo is updating information on its cancelled flights on its website, according to which the company has cancelled 282 flights till Saturday (20 July).
Microsoft systems Friday suffered a massive outage caused by issues with CrowdStrike’s Falcon Software. CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity firm that makes Falcon Sensor software used to protect systems from cyberattacks.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhari)
Also read: As Microsoft outage disrupts flights, banking & business, Indian airlines switch to manual check-in