New Delhi (PTI): Airline operations at the Delhi airport, the country's busiest airport, were slowly returning to normalcy on Saturday morning, a day after a glitch with the air traffic control system delayed more than 800 flights.

The technical problem with the Automatic Message Switching System (AMSS), which supports the air traffic control's flight planning process, continued for over 15 hours from around 5:45 am on Friday before the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said at around 9 pm that the issue has been addressed.

The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in the national capital that has four runways, handles more than 1,500 flight movements daily.

Delhi airport operator DIAL on Saturday morning said the technical issue which affected the AMSS is gradually improving.

"Airline operations at Delhi Airport are returning to normal, and all concerned authorities are working diligently to minimise any inconvenience caused," it said in a post on X.

Apart from over 800 flights that faced delays, some services were also cancelled on Friday, impacting hundreds of passengers.

The country's largest airline IndiGo on Saturday morning said the airport operator and Air Traffic Control (ATC) teams were working on priority to fully restore systems and stabilise operations.

"The situation is expected to be normalised over the next few hours. During this period, some departure and arrival timings may continue to be adjusted," it said in a post on X.

Information available on flight tracking website Flightradar24.com showed that over 200 flights were delayed at the airport, including arrivals and departures, on Saturday morning.

It could not be immediately ascertained whether the flight delays were only due to the AMSS issue which is gradually improving.

While the AMSS started facing the technical issue Thursday late afternoon, the outage with the system happened at around 5:45 am on Friday, following which air traffic controllers had to prepare flight plans manually, according to sources.

The AAI, which provides navigation and other services, had also deployed additional manpower to prepare the flight plans manually which is a time-consuming process.

On Friday evening, the AAI said it has addressed the "technical issue in the AMSS, which caused delays in processing flight plan messages".

The issue was detected in the IP-based AMSS system on November 6.

"The OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) was engaged, and additional staff were deployed to manually process Flight Plans for the Air Traffic Control system to ensure uninterrupted and safe air traffic operations immediately.

"A team of ECIL officials and AAI personnel is still on site. The AMSS systems are up and functional now. Due to some backlogs, there may be some delays in the normal functioning of automated operations, but the situation will be normal soon," the AAI had said.

Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.



New Delhi (PTI): Delhi remained warmer than usual on Monday, with no rainfall reported across key weather stations, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

According to the IMD, Safdarjung, the city's base station, recorded a maximum temperature of 30.5 degrees Celsius, clocking five degrees above normal temperature, while the minimum settled at 11.8 degrees Celsius. The Ridge area was the warmest at 31 degrees Celsius, followed by Ayanagar at 30.4 degrees Celsius and Lodi Road at 30.1 degrees Celsius. Palam recorded a comparatively lower maximum of 28.6 degrees Celsius.

While the Safdarjung weather station recorded a minimum of 11.8 degrees Celsius, Palam recorded 13 degrees Celsius, and Lodhi Road recorded 12 degrees Celsius, according to IMD data.

The weather department has predicted mist on Tuesday with the maximum and minimum temperatures expected to reach around 30 and 13 degrees Celsius, respectively. The IMD said no rainfall was recorded in the region during the observation period, indicating continued dry weather conditions.

The air quality was recorded in the 'poor' category, with an Air Quality Index (AQI) reading of 221, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data showed.

According to the CPCB, an AQI between zero and 50 is considered 'good', 51 to 100 'satisfactory', 101 to 200 'moderate', 201 to 300 'poor', 301 to 400 'very poor', and 401 to 500 'severe'.