Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Visits Delhi ATC Tower, Reviews Operations After Technical Glitch

New Delhi: Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the country, was plunged into chaos on Friday afternoon when a technical glitch hit the Air Traffic Control (ATC) messaging system. The issue, which persisted until Saturday morning, resulted in delays of over 800 flights and cancellations of 46 flights, leaving thousands of passengers stranded. The issue was fixed on Saturday, and the flight operations were normalised.

Meanwhile, Union Minister of Civil Aviation, Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, took charge of the situation, visiting the ATC Tower at Delhi Airport on Saturday to review operations and assess the damage. Accompanied by Secretary (MoCA) Samir Kumar Sinha, Chairman (AAI) Vipin Kumar, and senior officials, the Minister directed officials to conduct a detailed root-cause analysis and enhance system redundancy to make the ATC network more resilient for the future.

As per information, the technical fault, which occurred in the Automatic Message Switching System (AMSS), disrupted the entire flight operation, causing inconvenience to thousands of passengers. However, with the continuous action of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), Air Navigation Services (ANS), and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), the issue was resolved by Saturday afternoon, with flight operations returning to normal.

In a statement, Ram Mohan Naidu said, "Over the past two days, teams from AAI, ANS, and ECIL worked tirelessly to identify and resolve the issue while ensuring passenger safety through manual coordination. As systems are fully restored now, I have further directed officials to conduct a detailed root-cause analysis and enhance system redundancy to make our ATC network more resilient for the future."

The Union Aviation Minister visited the ATC Tower to review normalised operations and appreciated the efforts of the teams that worked overnight to resolve the issue. He also directed the ECIL CMD to deploy additional technical manpower to expedite the restoration efforts and minimise passenger inconvenience.

The officials stated that the technical glitch, which occurred on Friday afternoon, was finally resolved by Saturday afternoon, with the coordinated efforts of ECIL engineers, ATC personnel, and the Ministry's proactive monitoring. The system was fully restored to automatic mode by the afternoon of November 8, with no flight cancellations reported on Saturday.

The officials also stressed that the Union minister's directive to conduct a detailed root-cause analysis and enhance system redundancy is a step in the right direction towards ensuring the reliability and resilience of the ATC network.