IndiGo's 905 cancellations and 1,475 delays plunge Mumbai airport into week-long chaos for 2.6 lakh flyers

A bruising week of operational turbulence at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport left more than 2.6 lakh IndiGo passengers grappling with cancellations, long delays and cascading disruptions across the network, according to data shared by the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Between December 1 and 8, IndiGo recorded 905 cancellations and 1,475 delays exceeding 30 minutes on flights linked to Mumbai. The fallout was immediate and severe: 40,789 passengers were hit by outright cancellations, while another 2,66,567 travellers were delayed, reflecting one of the sharpest single-airline disruptions at the country’s second-busiest airport in recent years.

Madhu Sudan Shankar, Joint Secretary in the aviation ministry, said in Mumbai that the airline is now issuing advance warnings to travellers. “IndiGo now informs passengers about potential cancellations at least six hours before the scheduled departure time,” he told reporters, adding that officials were monitoring compliance closely.


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Government steps in with airport-wide inspections

With thousands of flyers stranded at terminals across India and social media flooded with complaints of missed connections and lost baggage, the ministry moved to contain the fallout.

It ordered senior aviation officers to conduct surprise inspections at 10 major airports, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Guwahati, Goa and Thiruvananthapuram.

Teams landed early on Tuesday and reviewed everything from crew management to baggage handling facilities. Officials said they examined holding areas, cargo zones and passenger touchpoints to assess whether congestion, staffing limitations or procedural lapses contributed to the crisis.

“We went and saw all the places, including a cargo handling area, baggage handling area and spoke with passengers. A lot of improvements have happened,” Shankar said, noting that airports had been instructed to ensure basics like drinking water and crowd management for stranded passengers.

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Operations collapsed mid-week

IndiGo had scheduled 3,171 flight movements from Mumbai during the eight-day period but managed to operate only 2,266, leaving nearly a third of its planned operations wiped out.

The worst days were December 4 and 5, when cancellations jumped dramatically, from 14 on December 1 to a staggering 295 on December 5. Delays, too, mounted, with December 3 seeing the peak of 281 late departures. Officials said the mounting backlog triggered a “cascading effect”, pushing delays into subsequent rotations and affecting multiple hubs.

The disruption also led to a backlog of around 780 unclaimed check-in bags belonging to passengers of cancelled flights. Authorities said 90% of these bags are expected to be delivered to passengers’ homes by Wednesday.

While some sectors recovered faster, key metro routes--Ahmedabad, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Cochin, Goa and Lucknow, remained heavily affected. International operations to Amsterdam and Istanbul also suffered sharp delays and cancellations.

(With inputs from ToI)