Indigo cancels 67 flights from multiple airports due to bad weather, operational issues
Mumbai (PTI): Domestic carrier IndiGo on Thursday cancelled 67 flights from multiple airports due to "forecasted" bad weather and operational reasons, according to the airline's website.
Of the 67 cancelled flights, only four were for operational reasons, and the rest were due to "forecasted" bad weather at various airports, including Agartala, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Varanasi, Bengaluru, among others, as per the website.
Aviation regulator, DGCA, has announced the period between December 10 and February 10 next year as the official fog window this winter.
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As part of the DGCA fog operations (CAT-IIIB) norms, airlines have to mandatorily roster pilots who are trained to operate in low-visibility conditions, as well as deploy a CAT-IIIB-compliant aircraft fleet for such operations.
Category-III is an advanced navigation system that empowers an aircraft to land under foggy conditions.
Category-III-A is a precision instrument approach and landing that enables a plane to land with a runway visual range (RVR) of 200 metres, while Category-III-B helps in landing with an RVR of under 50 metres.
IndiGo, whose operations are under DGCA monitoring after the cancellations of thousands of flights early this month, is already operating a curtailed schedule in compliance with the government's order.
Under its original winter flight schedule, the airline was permitted to operate 15,014 domestic flights per week, or about 2,144 flights per day, roughly six per cent higher than the 14,158 weekly flights it operated during the summer schedule of 2025.
However, after the massive disruptions, which saw the airline cancelling 1,600 flights on a single day on account of new rest norms for pilots, which allow more rest to the pilots, the government cut down the airline's domestic flight schedule by 10 per cent or 214 flights per day.
As a result of that, IndiGo can't operate more than 1,930 flights per day on domestic routes under its current winter schedule.
The Rahul Bhatia-controlled airline cancelled thousands of flights between December 1 and December 9 on account of a lack of proper planning, and crew shortage in implementing the new set of regulations for pilots' duty period and rest, which were put in place from November 1, thereby causing severe hardships to lakhs of air travellers.
Following this, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) formed a four-member panel, comprising Joint DG Sanjay Brahamane, Deputy Director General Amit Gupta, senior Flight Operations Inspector Kapil Manglik, and FOI Lokesh Rampal, with a mandate to identify the root causes of widespread operational disruptions at the Rahul Bhatia-controlled domestic carrier.
The panel, which has already grilled IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers and Chief Operating Officer Isidre Porqueras as part of its probe, is expected to submit its report by this week.
Meanwhile, IndiGo, in a travel advisory on X, said, "Low visibility and fog over Bangalore has impacted flight schedule. We are keeping a close watch on the weather and doing our best where you need to be safely, smoothly".
Reacting to the advisory, an aggrieved passenger, in an X post, said, "My flight on December 20 from Bhubaneswar to Ahmedabad got delayed for more than five hours, and today my return flight from Ahmedabad to Bhubaneswar also got delayed more than three hours with the same excuse as bad weather. I am travelling with my senior citizen parents, and this delay is not acceptable. Need proper explanation, along with compensation".
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Supreme Court strikes down Trump's sweeping tariffs, upending central plank of economic agenda
Washington (AP): The Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump's far-reaching global tariffs on Friday, handing him a significant loss on an issue crucial to his economic agenda.
The 6-3 decision centres on tariffs imposed under an emergency powers law, including the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs he levied on nearly every other country.
It's the first major piece of Trump's broad agenda to come squarely before the nation's highest court, which he helped shape with the appointments of three conservative jurists in his first term.
The majority found that the Constitution “very clearly” gives Congress the power to impose taxes, which include tariffs. “The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.
“The tariffs at issue here may or may not be wise policy. But as a matter of text, history, and precedent, they are clearly lawful,” Kavanaugh wrote in the dissent.
The majority did not address whether companies could get refunded for the billions they have collectively paid in tariffs. Many companies, including the big-box warehouse chain Costco, have already lined up for refunds in court, and Kavanaugh noted the process could be complicated.
“The Court says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers. But that process is likely to be a mess,' as was acknowledged at oral argument,” he wrote.
The tariffs decision doesn't stop Trump from imposing duties under other laws. While those have more limitations on the speed and severity of Trump's actions, top administration officials have said they expect to keep the tariff framework in place under other authorities.
The Supreme Court ruling comes despite a series of short-term wins on the court's emergency docket that have allowed Trump to push ahead with extraordinary flexes of executive power on issues ranging from high-profile firings to major federal funding cuts.
The Republican president has been vocal about the case, calling it one of the most important in US history and saying a ruling against him would be an economic body blow to the country. But legal opposition crossed the political spectrum, including libertarian and pro-business groups that are typically aligned with the GOP. Polling has found tariffs aren't broadly popular with the public, amid wider voter concern about affordability.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to levy tariffs. But the Trump administration argued that a 1977 law allowing the president to regulate importation during emergencies also allows him to set tariffs. Other presidents have used the law dozens of times, often to impose sanctions, but Trump was the first president to invoke it for import taxes.
Trump set what he called "reciprocal" tariffs on most countries in April 2025 to address trade deficits that he declared a national emergency. Those came after he imposed duties on Canada, China and Mexico, ostensibly to address a drug trafficking emergency.
A series of lawsuits followed, including a case from a dozen largely Democratic-leaning states and others from small businesses selling everything from plumbing supplies to educational toys to women's cycling apparel.
The challengers argued the emergency powers law doesn't even mention tariffs and Trump's use of it fails several legal tests, including one that doomed then-President Joe Biden's USD 500 billion student loan forgiveness program.
The economic impact of Trump's tariffs has been estimated at some USD 3 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Treasury has collected more than USD 133 billion from the import taxes the president has imposed under the emergency powers law, federal data from December shows.
