Chaos at Calcutta airport as Indigo cancellations and delays leave thousands stranded
Telegraph | 5 December 2025
Cancellations, delays, missing luggage, arguments and passengers desperately seeking to know whether their flights would take off: Calcutta airport was a picture of chaos on Thursday.
Similar bedlam afflicted many other airports, with IndiGo’s flight schedule going haywire.
Eleven arriving and 11 departing IndiGo flights were cancelled in the twenty hours between midnight and 8pm on Thursday, while 64 flights arriving in the city and 82 taking off were delayed, Calcutta airport officials said.
None of IndiGo’s eight scheduled international flights from Calcutta on Thursday were cancelled, but all of them were delayed, they added.
Airfares in most sectors have shot up because of the chaos. Adding to the problem was a lack of clear communication from IndiGo to thepassengers.
“At least a dozen passengers (who had arrived in Calcutta) came to us (airport officials) complaining about missing luggage,” a source said.
With hundreds of passengers stuck, the food courts and lounges at the airport were overcrowded. Travel Food Services, which runs the lounges at the airport, deployed additional personnel to handle the rush, airport sources said.
Many passengers alleged they were forced to sit inside their aircraft for hours before the plane took off.
Atish Roy and his wife Jiniya were to fly IndiGo to Port Blair in the morning. The scheduled departure time was 5.55am, but before they left their home in Konnagar, the couple received a message from the airline saying the takeoff would be at 6.25am.
“At 7.30am, my son called to say they had boarded the flight around 6am but it had not taken off. I heard passengers shouting in the background,” said Atish’s father Dipankar, a retired government employee.
“The cabin crew told them there were technical issues and the flight could be cancelled. They were asked to get off and wait inside the terminal. But the passengers refused.”
Finally, the plane took off at 10.30am, he said.
Abdul Aziz Riyaz, 37, a neurosurgeon with Manipal Hospital, Bengaluru, was to fly home from Calcutta.
“My flight was at 4.55am but it got cancelled. I had to cancel two surgeries today and make alternate arrangements for the rest,” he said.
“I checked the fares with other airlines -- they have increased drastically. An Air India Express ticket from Calcutta to Bangalore is now around ₹42,000, which is unreasonable.”
The crowds in front of the IndiGo counters swelled with anxious, stranded flyers. Many complained about a shortage of airline staff, saying they had none to approach for answers.
At the departure gates, security personnel were stopped frequently as passengers tried to confirm the revised timings, holding out their tickets.
Mukul Sharma, 22, who had arrived from Cambodia with his brothers at 6am, ran from counter to counter looking for options.
“We were supposed to take an 8.10am flight to Chandigarh. Only after our plane landed in Calcutta did we learn that it had been cancelled. I have checked at every counter, but I can’t find a single ticket. Everything is booked,” he said.
IndiGo staff at the airport had a harrowing time. “I haven’t gone home for the past 48 hours,” one of them said in the evening.
An airport official said a retiring room had been allocated for IndiGo employees to rest.
“We are trying to stabilise the operations in another 24 hours,” a spokesperson for the airline said.