Airline systems impacted by a global IT outage on Friday have started functioning normally, and all issues are expected to be resolved by noon on Saturday, Civil Aviation Minister K. Rammohan Naidu said. The ministry is actively monitoring airport and airline operations to ensure travel readjustments and refunds are managed effectively.
“Since 3 AM (Saturday), airline systems have been working normally, and flight operations are proceeding smoothly,” Naidu stated.
The outage, caused by an update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike affecting Microsoft's Windows, disrupted various sectors, including financial companies and airlines, causing hospital operation delays and some television channels to go off air.
Airports experienced chaos as online booking, reservation, and boarding systems switched to manual mode, increasing processing times and causing numerous flight delays and cancellations. The backlog from Friday is being cleared gradually.
“By noon today, we expect all issues to be resolved,” Naidu assured.
Most airlines, including IndiGo, SpiceJet, Akasa, and Air India Express, have resumed their reservation and check-in systems, a source confirmed.
A passenger at Delhi Airport noted, "I'm going to Ahmedabad. Online printing (Digi Yatra) is convenient, which wasn't available yesterday. Everything's fine today. Flights are on time. Yesterday's network issue was unavoidable."
IndiGo, which operates over 2,000 daily flights, had to cancel around 200 flights due to the outage. “The global outage that led to operational difficulties is nearly resolved, and our teams have made significant progress in restoring normal operations. However, customers may still experience delays and schedule disruptions over the weekend,” IndiGo stated.
SpiceJet and Akasa Air reported that all their systems, including ticket bookings, were operational by late Friday. SpiceJet confirmed that its systems at airports, ticket bookings, and call centers are functioning smoothly. Akasa Air mentioned that all scheduled flights on Friday operated with minimal disruption despite the global systems downtime.