Microsoft outage grounds 36 flights at Hyderabad Airport

The cancelled flights reportedly included 19 departures and 17 arrivals and belonged to Tirupati, Visakhapatnam, Bangalore, Cochin, Coimbatore, Thiruvananthapuram, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Raipur and Jaipur routes.

Hyderabad: As many as 36 domestic flights were cancelled at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) on Friday following Microsoft Azure outage that disrupted airline operations nationwide. The cancelled flights reportedly included 19 departures and 17 arrivals and belonged to Tirupati, Visakhapatnam, Bangalore, Cochin, Coimbatore, Thiruvananthapuram, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Raipur and Jaipur routes.

Operations of major carriers including IndiGo, Akasa Air, Air India, and SpiceJet, were significantly affected, causing considerable inconvenience to passengers. Flyers endured long queues, were not able to check-in their bags and struggled to receive boarding passes. They rushed to make enquiries about about refunds/ potential service restorations.

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Frustrated passengers took to social media to express their disappointment. One comment on ‘X’ read: “We’ve been waiting for 45 mins just to check in our bags!!! Honestly in such a big airport, why do you have only 3 active counters? This is one of the worst experiences (sic).”

In response to these concerns, RGIA on ‘X,’ posted an advisory. “Due to the global IT outage, services of airlines have been impacted. We are closely working with all our stakeholders to minimize the inconvenience to our flyers. You may please get in touch with the airline concerned for updates on your flight information. We thank you for your support and understanding.”

IndiGo reported increased wait times at contact centers and airports due to the disruption. “Our systems across the network are impacted, resulting in slower check-ins and longer queues,” it said.

Akasa Air reported similar disruptions, particularly in online services like booking and check-in. The airline resorted to manual processes at airports and advised passengers to arrive early. “We sincerely regret the inconvenience and assure you that our teams are working with our service provider to resolve this at the earliest,” Akasa Air communicated via social media.

Air India and SpiceJet also issued advisories regarding the technical issues. Air India acknowledged temporary impacts on digital systems, while SpiceJet mentioned difficulties in providing flight disruption updates, apologizing for the inconvenience and pledging a swift resolution.