Budget carriers IndiGo and GoAir cancelled as many as 65 flights on Tuesday after aviation regulator DGCA grounded 11 of their A320Neo aircraft with faulty Pratt & Whitney engines, causing severe inconvenience to hundreds of flyers.
The Gurugram-based IndiGo cancelled 47 of its 1,000-odd flights per day, while the Wadia Group-promoted GoAir said it had cancelled 18 flights originating from over eight cities. GoAir operates 230 flights per day.
IndiGo announced on its website the cancellations of some 47 flights across its domestic network for today. The flights that have been cancelled are from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Patna, Srinagar, Bhubaneswar, Amritsar, Srinagar and Guwahati, among others.
Later in a statement to the media, IndiGo said the affected passengers have been given the option to either choose another flight at no additional cost or cancel their booking and get a full refund without any cancellation charges. “IndiGo has cancelled certain flights due to the grounding of our aircraft further to the DGCA directions which has been issued in the interest of safety,” the airline said.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation cracked the whip after an IndiGo flight bound for Lucknow returned to Ahmedabad within 40 minutes of its getting airborne due to a mid-air engine failure yesterday.
Hundreds of passengers stranded
On Monday, hundreds of passengers were stranded across the country as dozens of flights were cancelled by IndiGo and GoAir following the grounding of 11 planes.
IndiGo operates about 1,000 flights daily.
IndiGo carries about 40 per cent of domestic flyers, while GoAir has a market share of around 10 per cent.
