IndiGo announced a fresh wave of flight cancellations on Tuesday as services limped back to normalcy. CEO Pieter Elbers shared a video message to apologise for the ongoing crisis — insisting that the airline was ‘back on its feet’ with stable operations. Thousands have had their travel plans thrown into disarray over the past ten days as the airline grappled with crew rostering issues and ‘operational’ glitches.
“I’m here to share that IndiGo is back on its feet and our operations are stable. We’ve led you down when a major operational disruption happens. And we’re sorry for that…Thousands of you could not travel and we’re profusely apologetic about it. While we cannot undo the cancellations, I want to reassure that ever since our entire IndiGo team has been working very hard,” Elbers began in a video message.
Elbers revealed that the airline had now resumed flights to all 138 destinations it serviced and insisted that “on-time performance had been normalised”.
Refunds underway?
“Our first priority was to get all stranded and delayed customers safely to their destinations or back home. Then we started our refunds – ‘no questions asked’. Lakhs of customers have already received their full refunds and we continue to do so on a daily basis. Rest assured that we are fully committed to getting this done. Most of the bags stuck at airports have already been delivered back to your homes, and our teams are working very hard on delivering the remaining ones very soon,” he added.
Over 400 flights cancelled
A massive wave of cancellations by IndiGo continued to impact air travel across India on Tuesday, with hundreds of flights cancelled, and passengers continued to suffer. The disruption has led to over 400 cancellations nationwide so far, according to airport authorities.
Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) Airport reported the highest impact, confirming 152 IndiGo flights cancelled, including 76 arrivals and 76 departures, authorities said. Cancellations rippled across southern airports as well. In Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport, 58 arrivals and 63 departures were cancelled, with the airport authority announcing that the next update will be issued after 6 pm. Chennai also reported a significant disruption, with 18 departures and 23 arrivals cancelled through the day. Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) confirmed the cancellation of 44 departures and 14 arrivals.