SpiceJet and Air India Express were the hardest hit as multiple domestic flights faced delays today.
A SpiceJet flight from Kochi was delayed by nearly 14 hours, with departure rescheduled to the next day, while a SpiceJet flight from Jaipur was delayed almost 12 hours.
Air India Express flights from Amritsar and Kochi were delayed by close to 12 hours and over two hours respectively.
An Air India flight from New Delhi was delayed by around 1.5 hours.
The delays follow a broader wave of Asian aviation disruption on September 11 and 12 that saw 4,804 flights delayed and 206 cancelled, with Delhi’s IGI Airport logging 475 delayed departures.
Ground handling and crew scheduling pressures have been cited in some recent Indian aviation disruptions, though airlines have not confirmed this as a specific cause for Saturday’s delays.
Passengers travelling on affected routes were advised to check their flight status directly with airlines given the scale and unpredictability of the ongoing disruptions.
The delays come days after a separate wave of disruption swept Asian aviation hubs on September 11 and 12, when 4,804 flights were delayed and 206 cancelled across the region.
Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport was among the worst-hit in that broader regional disruption, logging 475 delayed departures over the two-day period.
Passengers on the affected Amritsar and Jaipur flights faced waits of nearly 12 hours before departure, with some SpiceJet passengers from Kochi seeing their flight pushed to the following day.
Airlines have not issued a single unified explanation for the string of delays, with individual disruptions attributed to a mix of aircraft rotation issues, weather and downstream scheduling knock-on effects.
Air India Express operates a significant share of India’s Gulf-bound routes, including services to Muscat, Salalah and Kuwait, making its schedule reliability closely watched by frequent flyers on those corridors.
SpiceJet aircraft landing in New Delhi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
