NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Civil Aviation said on Saturday that flight operations in the country are back to normal a day after a global outage at Microsoft had a severe impact on the functioning of airlines and airports.
“Since 3 AM in the night, Airline systems across airports have started working normally. Flight operations are going smoothly now. There is a backlog because of disruptions yesterday, and it is getting cleared gradually. By noon today, we expect all issues to be resolved,” the Aviation Ministry said.
It added, “We are constantly monitoring the operations at our airports and also with the airlines ensuring travel readjustments and refunds are taken care of. We thank you for your patience.”
India’s largest airline IndiGo, which had cancelled 200 flights on Friday, said on Saturday that the global outage that led to operational difficulties is nearly resolved, and their teams have made significant progress in restoring normal operations. However, it added that customers may still experience delays and schedule disruptions over the weekend.
Among airports, the Delhi Airport faced slight disruptions on Saturday morning as the Digi Yatra system remained non-operational. This led to increased waiting time and lingering queues earlier in the day. In India, almost all the airlines and major airports had a field day on Friday as it became nearly impossible for them to provide basic services such as online booking, web check-ins and flight status updates.
Not only airports but the IT industry, financial market and other sectors also experienced a major disruption in services. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) said out of the 1400+trading members ecosystem, there were 11 trading members who reported disruptions to their operations, which were either resolved during the day, or are being resolved. Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) said the outage in Microsoft services impacted five AMCs which reported disruption to some important functions but the issues were resolved during the day.
A new Crowdstrike (cybersecurity software firm) update was being cited as the cause of the outage, which impacted Windows-based desktops and laptops.
Airport faced disruptions on Saturday morning
Among airports, Delhi Airport faced slight disruptions on Saturday morning as Digi Yatra system remained non-operational. This led to increased waiting time and lingering queues. Almost all airlines and major airports had a field day on Friday as it became nearly impossible for them to provide basic services