IndiGo sees significant flight disruptions, cancels 32 planes on Monday; says Thursday's hailstorm upsets operations

New Delhi: IndiGo has cancelled scores of flights in two days and will not be operating around 32 flights on Monday following shortage of pilots, a source said. The country’s largest airline has cancelled flights from Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, the source in the aviation industry said. Many flights have been cancelled by the airline since Saturday. [caption id=“attachment_5506871” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] IndiGo Airlines aircraft. Reuters[/caption] The carrier cancelled around 15 flights on Saturday and around seven on Sunday, officials at the Delhi airport said. “The airline has been facing problems in crew management. Therefore, these flights, which had to depart from Delhi on Saturday and Sunday were cancelled,” one of the airport officials said. In a statement, IndiGo said that due to a severe hailstorm in North India on 7 February, 11 IndiGo flights were diverted and that disrupted operations across its network the following day. “As part of recovering our schedule, positioning of the crew and aircraft had to be readjusted. As a result, a number of flights were cancelled. We regret the inconvenience caused to our customers,” IndiGo said. Officials at Bengaluru airport officials said that as many as 16 flights of the airline were cancelled on Sunday. “The airline is facing shortage of commanders and pilots and this is forcing the airline to cancel flights from across stations,” the source told PTI. “As of now 32 flights from across the network have been cancelled for Monday by the carrier,” the source said. A second query sent to IndiGo seeking its response on the cancellation of 32 flights for Monday due to pilots shortage did not elicit any immediate response. Operations at the Delhi airport saw massive disruption on 7 February as a total of 36 flights were diverted due to severe rain and hailstorm in the national capital.