IndiGo cancels flights from cities including Odisha capital. Know why

Bhubaneswar: Domestic carrier IndiGo cancelled as many as 42 flights for today from the cities including Bhubaneswar after aviation regulator DGCA denied to give permission to 11 of A320neo flights with faulty Pratt & Whitney engines, causing inconvenience to hundreds of air passengers.

Along with Bhubaneswar, the IndiGo flights to Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Jaipur, Srinagar, Chennai, Delhi, Dehradun, Amritsar, Bengaluru and Hyderabad have been cancelled for today.

The IndiGo flights from and to Bhubaneswar to and from Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai have also been cancelled for March 15 and 16. The passengers, who have booked tickets on IndiGo flights earlier, will be accommodated on other airlines’ flights.

With cancellation of flights operated by IndiGo and GoAir, the aviation sector in the country was severely affected and the air passengers are likely to face more disruptions in the coming weeks.

On Tuesday, IndiGo had cancelled 48 flights from 18 cities and GoAir struck down 18 flights from 8 cities. While 17 IndiGo flights from Delhi and 3 from Mumbai were cancelled yesterday, the aviation firm had cancelled the flights from Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Indore, Jammu, Ranchi, Bhubaneshwar, Nagpur, Patna, Varanasi, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Coimbatore and Cochin.

GoAir had cancelled 18 flights from 8 cities that included Bengaluru, Cochin, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Lucknow and Delhi except flights between Delhi and Mumbai on March 13.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) order came after a Lucknow-bound IndiGo flight carrying 186 passengers on board made an emergency landing in Ahmedabad after encountering a mid-air engine failure yesterday.

The DGCA said that the IndiGo and GoAir flights with faulty engines have been grounded for safety and security of the air passengers.