For the third consecutive day, passengers at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport faced severe disruptions as IndiGo cancelled a significant number of flights on Friday. The situation led to long serpentine queues, exhausted travelers sleeping on floors, and rising tempers at airline counters across terminals.
Families and Dreams Disrupted
Among the countless affected was Mangaljeet Singh, 37, from Ludhiana, who was stranded with his family outside Terminal 2's Gate 2. Their journey had already been derailed once when their initial flight from Ludhiana to Delhi was cancelled, forcing a road trip to the capital. Their hopes were dashed again upon learning their connecting flight to Visakhapatnam via Hyderabad was also cancelled.
The cancellation has directly impacted his son's participation in a national skating competition, which was postponed by a day due to similar delays faced by other participants. In a desperate move, the family of five managed to secure only two tickets on another airline. This forced Singh's wife, three-year-old daughter, and 64-year-old mother to return to Ludhiana. "If my son misses the competition, his year-long efforts will come to naught," a distressed Singh said.
Strangers Bonding in Adversity
At Terminal 1, the human cost of the chaos was vividly clear. Rinpuii, 34, from Aizawl, was seen cradling her unwell two-year-old daughter after a medical trip to Thiruvananthapuram. What was supposed to be a short layover in Delhi turned into a five-hour ordeal outside the ticket counter.
There, she met 22-year-old Carolyn, a Delhi resident also traveling to Aizawl. Hailing from the same native place, the two strangers bonded over the shared crisis. Carolyn stepped in to help Rinpuii communicate with the airline staff. "They have nowhere to stay in Delhi. And she does not know when she can board the flight home," Carolyn explained, highlighting the complete lack of clarity for passengers.
Tourists, Medical Travelers, and NRIs Caught in the Mess
The disruption spared no one. Pankaj Gupta, 26, from Alwar, had planned a surprise flight for his elderly parents via Jaipur after a Delhi vacation. "They have never boarded a flight and were so happy when they realised that we were entering the airport. Then, despair took over," Gupta recounted.
Outside Terminal 2's Gate 5, a group of 30 tourists from Raipur, Chhattisgarh, returning from Dharamshala, revealed they had been waiting at the airport for two days. Hemit Navdia, 23, managing the group, said, "It's costing me a lot extra to manage so many people in this condition. We don't have any accommodation here. The airport authority has finally given us some food."
International travelers were also impacted. Ruma Rahman, 50, and her husband Atique Rahman, 58, from Dhaka, were in Delhi for his medical treatment and were scheduled to fly to Agartala for a wedding. Their plans stand cancelled. A 72-year-old Non-Resident Indian from Houston, visiting family in Lucknow, expressed regret: "Had I earlier known about the massive delay and the spate of cancellations, I wouldn't have done my web-check-in and figured out an alternate way to reach Lucknow."
Many passengers discovered their connecting flights were cancelled only after completing check-in, leaving them in a logistical nightmare with their luggage already processed. Entrepreneur Riitesh Chablani, 49, missed his cousin's wedding in Mumbai. Another flyer from Mumbai was anxious about checked-in luggage containing new clothes and jewellery for a wedding, with officials giving conflicting information about its location.
The scenes at IGI Airport underscore a systemic breakdown in communication and contingency planning, leaving hundreds of passengers from all walks of life to bear the brunt of consecutive days of flight cancellations.
