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09-11-2025
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI: Aircraft movement at Delhi airport was hampered on Friday because its Air Traffic Control system suffered a technical problem, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said after several flights were disrupted at one of the world’s busiest airports.
Top airlines IndiGo, Air India and Spicejet said their flight operations were affected, leading to delays and longer wait times.
The AAI said a technical issue in the Automatic Message Switching System, which supports Air Traffic Control data, caused the disruption.
“Controllers are processing flight plans manually, leading to some delays. Technical teams are working to restore the system at the earliest,” AAI said in a post on social media.
IndiGo said flight operations at Delhi and several northern regions were impacted. The airlines did not elaborate further.
The issue delayed about 70-80 flight departures by more than 30 minutes on Friday morning and 25 flights were affected on Thursday, a source familiar with the matter told media.
The airport handles 60-70 aircraft movements per hour. Data from Flightradar24 showed dozens of flights were delayed, with several departure timings in the red for Friday morning.
The website said the average departure delay was 55 minutes.
According to the website, ITA Airways’ flight to Rome was delayed by nearly two hours and Virgin Atlantic’s flight to London by over an hour.
Flights scheduled to take off between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. (0030 GMT and 0230 GMT) were the most affected.
Aircraft were still landing at the airport, but take-offs were disrupted, an airline source told Reuters.
The Air Traffic Control has not yet told airlines when the issue would be resolved, the source added.
Delhi airport handled about 78 million passengers in 2024, making it the ninth busiest airport in the world, according to Airports Council International.
Three weeks ago, Air India is in talks with Airbus and Boeing to add more wide-body jets as it expands planned purchases to up to 300 aircraft, people familiar with the matter said, marking an acceleration of its turnaround under the Tata Group.
The negotiations now include as many as 80 to 100 wide-body jets, the sources said, on top of previously reported talks for 200 narrow-body jets and 25-30 wide-body aircraft.
Airbus said it does “not comment on confidential discussions, which may or may not be happening with customers.” Air India and Boeing did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In June, media reported that Air India was in talks with Airbus and Boeing for a major new aircraft order including some 200 extra narrow-body planes, topping up a mammoth deal in 2023.
That came on top of earlier discussions involving 25-30 wide-body jets, which media reported in March.
Under the latest plans for the airline’s rebranding as a modern global carrier under Tata, it is now looking at up to 300 more planes, the people familiar with the matter said. It was not immediately clear how many of these may involve options rather than firm orders, such a deal would once again likely be shared between the two dominant global aircraft suppliers but the possible split has not been finalized, one of the sources said.
