IndiGo cancels 28 flights since Friday

KOLKATA: The hailstorm that struck the National Capital Region last Friday continues to disrupt IndiGo flights in and out of Kolkata with the airline cancelling 28 departures and 31 arrivals since then. Sources said the low-cost carrier was struggling with rostering of pilots in the aftermath of the hailstorm that had thrown flights and crew schedules haywire.

The maximum cancellations has been to southern cities Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru with cancellation of 15 flights to and from these cities. Nearly a fourth of the flights cancelled nationally were from Kolkata.

"IndiGo is slightly adjusting its flight schedule in the coming days by around 30 flights per day to stabilise the network and operations impacted due to various ongoing Notams and likely bad weather in the coming days," said the airline said in a statement.

IndiGo with a fleet size of 209 operates around 1,300 daily flights across the country and has over 100 departures from Kolkata. It flies to 52 domestic and 16 international airports.

Sources said the airline had encountered the problem following the unpredicted hailstorm last Saturday that forced the diversion of several flights and caused huge delays, affecting its crew schedules. Pilots that have strict flight duty time limitations have had to be rested, leading to the crisis.

According to industry insiders, though the airline has been expanding rapidly and adding planes to its fleet, it has been unable to match that with adequate pilot recruitments. "There is a shortage of pilots in the country. So even if IndiGo wants to recruit pilots, there aren't any available right now," a veteran pilot said, adding the carrier needed at least 100 more pilots to sort out its schedules.