IndiGo pulls out 30 flights as pilot shortage continues to hamper operations, says cancellations to go on for a few more days

Mumbai: Shortage of pilots continued to hamper operations of IndiGo with the budget carrier on Tuesday cancelling 30 flights from across major airports and passengers allegedly being forced to buy last minute tickets at high fares, a source said. The airline said flight cancellations will continue for some more days, affecting around 30 flights per day. On Monday also, the airline had pulled out 32 flights from its network at short notice inconveniencing tens of hundreds of passengers. [caption id=“attachment_5506871” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] IndiGo Airlines aircraft. Reuters[/caption] Acknowledging the disruption in its services, the airline said, it will “slightly adjust” its schedules in the coming days, impacting about 30 flights per day. Meanwhile, a senior official said aviation regulator DGCA is looking into the “issue.” “IndiGo is slightly adjusting its flight schedule in the coming days by around 30 flights per day to stabilise the network and operations impacted due to various ongoing Notams and likely bad weather in the coming days,” the airline said in a statement after the PTI story went on wire. Notam, or notice to airmen, is given to pilots and include information on potential hazards on a flight route. IndiGo has cancelled 30 flights on Tuesday due to the on-going pilot shortages. Most flights have been cancelled from Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai, a source told PTI earlier in the day. While eight flights were not operated from Kolkata, another five flights were cancelled from Hyderabad and four each from Bangalore and Chennai among others,the source added. The source also alleged that IndiGo was forcing passengers to either buy last minute tickets on its flights or offering them alternate flights with one-stop connectivity with a long layover time. “To avoid inconvenience, these adjustments are being made in advance, enabling adequate notice to passengers. They are being accommodated close to their original flight schedule. These adjustments amount to 1-2 percent of the originally planned flights,” IndiGo said in the statement. An airline official said the disruption in the flight operations emanated from the heavy rains and hailstorm that hit the Delhi-NCR region last week and subsequent FDTL issue. Both the pilots and cabin crew are governed by DGCA mandated flight duty and time limitation (FDTL) norms and they can’t fly beyond the FDTL. The airline had Sunday blamed bad weather for disruptions in operations across its network.