Divya Misra, a homemaker from Indore, was stuck at the Hyderabad airport for almost 17 hours, as air travel across the country limped back to normalcy on Saturday, a day after the worldwide Microsoft outage sparked by a software update.
Misra was informed her connecting flight to Bhubaneswar, scheduled for Friday evening at 8pm, had been cancelled. The next flight to the Odisha capital is scheduled for Saturday night around 8.50 pm, according to the Hyderabad airport website.
“My friend’s engagement is today and I am stuck here,” Misra told The Telegraph Online over phone from a hotel in Hyderabad where many of the passengers stranded at the airport with their connecting flights cancelled had been accommodated overnight.
“After yesterday’s experience, there is no certainty whether the flight will be on time. Anyway, I have missed the engagement,” she rued.
On Saturday morning, a message on the website of IndiGo Airlines said: “The global outage that led to operational difficulties is nearly resolved, and we have made significant progress in restoring normal operations. However, customers may still experience delays and schedule disruptions.”
Around 93 flights across the country run by Indigo Airlines remained cancelled for Saturday, according to the website.
Responding to a query from The Telegraph Online, a spokesperson for IndiGo said, "System is restored".
In response to a query made by a user on X, the social media team of IndiGo responded: “Hi, flights are cancelled due to the cascading effect of the worldwide travel system outage, beyond our control.”
The response was posted at 12.19 pm, Saturday.
Rohit Dutta, a fourth-year chemical engineering student of NIT Manipal, decided to book a cab from Hyderabad to Mangalore for Saturday, paying an additional Rs 13,000 for the ride, thanks to his flight being delayed.
“I couldn’t ask for a refund from the airlines. Their system is still not operational,” Dutta told The Telegraph Online over phone.
Deepak Verma, a national capital region-based landscape designer who was on his way to Delhi from Rajamhundry and take another flight to Raipur on Saturday morning for a meeting, had to revise his plans.
“The client has rescheduled the meeting. I have booked a return flight to Delhi,” Verma told this publication.
Another airline, SpiceJet, claimed it had zero cancellations on Friday, a day when air travel was thrown out of whack across the world.
“SpiceJet navigates technical turbulence flawlessly! We’re thrilled to have operated all scheduled flights today, despite global technical challenges! Zero cancellations due to the outage. Huge thanks to our team and passengers for their patience,” SpiceJet wrote in a post on X around midnight. “We are back. The global technical outage is fixed, and SpiceJet bookings are open on all platforms.”
A similar message was shared by Akasa Air too: “Our booking, check-in and boarding systems are now up and running. Thank you for your patience and understanding during these challenging times. We look forward to welcoming you aboard the Akasa experience.”
Civil aviation minister K Rammohan Naidu on Saturday said airline systems were back to normal.
“Since 3 am (Saturday), Airline systems across airports have started working normally. Flight operations are going smoothly now,” Naidu said in a statement. “All remaining issues will be fixed by noon.”
A senior official at the Delhi international airport said services at the airport had normalised on Friday itself, though individual airlines faced some problems.
“Because of the rippling effect of the delays in the scheduled departures and arrivals some of the airlines have faced difficulties,” he said.