A major technical glitch in the air traffic control system at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in New Delhi disrupted more than 400 flights on Friday, causing widespread delays across India’s aviation network. The malfunction at the country’s busiest airport forced controllers to process flight plans manually after the automated system went offline.
The disruption began late Thursday and extended into Friday morning, affecting both departures and arrivals. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) confirmed that the failure occurred in the Automatic Message Switching System (AMSS), which handles real-time communication of flight plans between pilots and controllers. The outage prompted significant congestion and forced airlines to delay multiple flights in and out of Delhi.
Airlines and passengers face cascading delays
According to reports from Reuters, Hindustan Times, and The Economic Times, more than 100 scheduled flights were immediately delayed when the system first went down, with delays later expanding to over 400 as operations backed up throughout the day. The average departure delay reached nearly one hour, while arrivals experienced even longer holds as air traffic controllers worked manually to maintain spacing and safety protocols.
India’s leading carriers, including IndiGo, Air India, and SpiceJet, issued advisories warning passengers to expect extended wait times at boarding gates and possible knock-on disruptions to connecting flights. Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), which operates IGIA, said teams were “working closely with the AAI and all stakeholders to resolve the issue at the earliest.”
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Wider impact across Indian airports
The temporary loss of the AMSS system led to ripple effects across other major Indian airports, particularly those with high traffic to and from Delhi. Flights departing from Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad also reported delays as aircraft awaited clearance from Delhi’s congested airspace. The AAI said its technical teams were deployed immediately to restore full automation.
The authority confirmed that while no flight safety incidents occurred, the switch to manual coordination slowed down procedures substantially. “Technical teams are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible,” the AAI said in a statement quoted by Indian media. By late afternoon, partial restoration had been achieved, though full functionality was still being verified.
Delhi airport handles more than 1,500 aircraft movements per day and serves over 73 million passengers annually, making it one of the largest air hubs in Asia. The incident highlights the operational risks posed by technical vulnerabilities in automated air traffic systems, especially in high-volume environments.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation has requested a full report from the AAI to determine the cause of the outage and to evaluate system redundancy measures. Analysts said the event may prompt a broader review of India’s aviation infrastructure to prevent future disruptions of this scale.
As of Friday evening, flight operations at IGIA were gradually returning to normal, but airlines advised passengers to continue checking real-time flight status before traveling to the airport.
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