On Tuesday, a staggering 47 planes from the carrier Indigo were cancelled, leading to massive outrage and chaos amidst passengers.
The aviation regulator DGCA, or the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, cancelled a total of 47 flights of the carrier, which included more than eight A320 Neo planes that apparently had faulty Pratt & Whitney.
This affects their domestic routes, with a massive shortage of flights today, and maybe for the rest of the week as well.
Why did this happen suddenly?
The DGCA came into action when a Lucknow bound Indigo flight had to return to Ahmedabad within 40 minutes after it took off. This was because the engine reportedly suffered a mid-air failure on Monday.
Is it only Indigo that’s affected or some other carrier too?
In addition to the Indigo flights, three GoAir crafts have also been grounded because they too were fitted with the same engines.
Which routes got affected?
The crafts that have been cancelled are usually operated on the various routes of Indigo, which include Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Srinagar, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Amritsar and more destinations.
What will happen to my tickets now that I had already booked?
Image Credit: Indigo website
On their website, Indigo has mentioned a list of the flights that have been cancelled, and says that if you are on any of these flights, you can choose an alternate flight for which they have given the link, or call a number for assistance which has also been provided on the website.
Hundreds of flyers had to cancel their travel plans and were left stranded after Indigo cancelled a chunk of their flights. The DGCA order put the flights out of operation, and as a result the carriers did not have a definite answer on when they would start the operations on the same routes and flights again.
So will this affect only 47 flights, or more?
While 47 crafts have been grounded, the situation can actually impact almost 80 to 90 flights, as most crafts make about 7 to 8 trips in a day. This means that the number of cancelled flights will eventually amount to much more than what the numbers say right now.
Image Credit: indiatoday
The DGCA order has brought the changes with immediate effect, which means the crafts have been grounded without the carriers finding any time to arrange for any alternate measures.
This is not the first time that the blue carrier has gotten under the blues. In fact, even as they had started to become one of the most popular carriers in the country, the staff at Indigo had come under massive criticism especially after a video of a staff hitting a passenger surfaced online.
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