Minister Inspects Delhi ATC After Technical Disruption
Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu conducted a personal inspection of the Air Traffic Control (ATC) tower at Delhi Airport on Saturday. This visit came in the immediate aftermath of a significant technical malfunction within the airport's air traffic control system that had impacted operations.
Sharing details of his review on the social media platform X, the Minister provided reassurance about the resolution of the crisis. He confirmed that systems are now fully restored and operational following the incident.
Tireless Efforts and Manual Operations Ensure Safety
In his statement, Minister Naidu highlighted the coordinated efforts to manage the situation. "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," he posted.
The ministry, in an official statement on Saturday evening, provided a clear timeline, noting that the system was fully restored to automatic mode by the afternoon of November 8. A key takeaway from the event was that despite the challenges, there were no flight cancellations on Saturday directly attributed to the technical issue.
Directives for a More Resilient ATC Network
Looking forward, the Minister has issued specific instructions to prevent a recurrence. He has directed officials to conduct a detailed root-cause analysis of the failure. Furthermore, he emphasized the need to enhance system redundancy to fortify the ATC network against future disruptions.
Additional measures announced include plans for more system advancements, such as the deployment of additional or fallback servers to strengthen ATC operations. To expedite the restoration process during the outage, the Minister directed the CMD of ECIL to deploy extra technical manpower. To minimize passenger inconvenience, more ATC staff were deployed at Delhi Airport to support manual operations, ensuring air traffic was handled smoothly during the system downtime.
While the situation was ultimately contained, the glitch did have a tangible impact. The Civil Aviation Ministry confirmed that the issue led to delays and the cancellation of 46 flights during the period of disruption. Delhi International Airport Ltd. (DIAL) later stated that all flight operations had returned to normal, advising passengers to contact their airlines for the latest updates. The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), a critical aviation hub with four runways, typically handles more than 1,500 flight movements daily.
