After two days of unprecedented chaos at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, flight operations have largely returned to normal following a major technical glitch that disrupted air traffic and delayed over 800 flights.
What Happened
On the evening of November 6, a fault occurred in the airport’s Automatic Message Switching System (AMSS) a key component of the Air Traffic Control (ATC) network responsible for managing flight plan communications.
The failure forced controllers to switch to manual data processing, significantly slowing down operations and causing widespread delays through the night and into the following day.
By November 7, more than 800 flights both domestic and international had been delayed and around 20 were cancelled. Long queues formed across terminals as thousands of passengers were stranded, some missing their connecting flights or spending hours waiting for boarding updates.
Current Status and Recovery
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has confirmed that the system is now fully restored and functioning normally. Automated message routing has resumed, but authorities cautioned that minor delays could still occur as the backlog clears.
Flight data from early Saturday morning showed a steep improvement: only around 129 flights faced minor delays including 53 arrivals and 76 departures. Average delays were down to 5 – 20 minutes, compared to several hours earlier this week.
AAI engineers and the airport’s IT teams have conducted a full system audit to ensure the issue does not recur. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is also reviewing standard procedures for emergency system switching at major airports.
What This Means for Passengers Today
Travellers scheduled to fly from or via Delhi today can expect near normal operations, but experts advise caution. The following steps are recommended:
- Check flight status directly with your airline before heading to the airport.
- Arrive early at least three hours before domestic and four hours before international departures.
- Monitor display boards and airline alerts for last-minute changes.
- Those with tight connecting flights should plan for possible residual delays as airlines re-align schedules.
The Bigger Picture
The incident has highlighted how heavily India’s busiest airport depends on digital air traffic management systems. While backup procedures prevented a total shutdown, the manual fallback proved slow and inefficient.
Aviation analysts say the episode underscores the need for redundant, high availability digital infrastructure and faster automated recovery systems to prevent such large scale disruptions in the future.
