Delhi Airport Glitch Delays 500 Flights
NEW DELHI: Delhi airport witnessed major disruptions on Friday after a software glitch in the air traffic control (ATC) system brought operations to a halt. A glitch in the automatic massage switching system (AMSS), which supports ATC data and flight plan processing, caused controllers to manually manage flight plans, resulting in the delay and cancellation of approximately 500 flights. Arrivals were not affected and the issue was resolved late Friday night.
At Shamshabad airport, 11 arrivals and 10 departures to Hyderabad were affected. The delays started at 7.33am with IndiGo flight 6E 6621.
Airports Authority of India (AAI) confirmed in a statement that AMSS fault was detected in its IP-based system at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport on November 6. “The issue caused delays in the processing of flight plan messages. A review meeting was immediately held under the chairmanship of the civil aviation secretary along with the AAI chairman and senior officials and necessary instructions were issued,” AAI said.
AAI added that the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) has been engaged and additional personnel have been deployed to manually process flight plans to ensure safe and uninterrupted operations. “The AMSS system is currently up and running. There may be minor delays due to backlogs, but normal operations will resume soon. We regret the inconvenience caused to airlines and passengers,” the statement said.
Every aircraft must submit a flight plan before takeoff. AMSS provides these details to the automatic tracking system (ATS) which facilitates flight tracking. Due to the malfunction, controllers manually prepared flight plans using available data; this was a time-consuming process that led to air traffic congestion and departure delays.
This glitch also affected meteorological data integration; Obtaining nationwide weather information, often through the automatic terminal information system (ATIS), required manual processing.
IGI airport, India’s busiest airport, handles more than 1,500 flight movements per day. No complaint was lodged with the Delhi Police Cyber Cell as authorities denied the possibility of any cyber attack. Sources said engineers were working through the night to resolve the technical issue, which reportedly started on Thursday.
