Business and leisure travellers flying into and out of India’s busiest hub found themselves marooned on 7 November when a fault in Delhi’s Air Traffic Control (ATC) network crippled departures for several hours. According to the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the Automatic Message Switching System (AMSS)—the software that automatically relays flight-plan data to controllers—stopped working late on 6 November. Controllers were forced to compile flight strips by hand, reducing the airport’s departure rate from its normal 60-plus movements an hour to barely one-third that figure.
By Friday morning the backlog had ballooned: Reuters counted more than 200 delayed flights, with average holds of 50–60 minutes. IndiGo, SpiceJet and Air India issued social-media advisories and began waiving change fees; international carriers including ITA Airways and Virgin Atlantic warned of onward-connection disruption. Market nerves were also on display as InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo’s parent) fell 1.5 % in intra-day trading.
![Major ATC glitch at Delhi’s IGI Airport delays more than 200 flights]()
For corporate mobility managers the incident is a sharp reminder of single-point vulnerabilities in India’s aviation infrastructure. November marks the start of peak relocation and project-travel season, and Delhi is a key hub for North-India assignments. Companies with time-critical cargo and fly-in-fly-out engineers suffered knock-on delays at Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad where rotations rely on Delhi aircraft.
AAI engineers had most systems restored by mid-afternoon, but a root-cause probe is exploring whether ageing servers or malware triggered the outage. The civil-aviation ministry has asked Delhi International Airport Limited to fast-track the planned AMSS upgrade now slated for Q2 2026. Until then, risk-mitigation steps include longer transit buffers and traveller tracking tools that push real-time delay alerts to employees.
By Friday morning the backlog had ballooned: Reuters counted more than 200 delayed flights, with average holds of 50–60 minutes. IndiGo, SpiceJet and Air India issued social-media advisories and began waiving change fees; international carriers including ITA Airways and Virgin Atlantic warned of onward-connection disruption. Market nerves were also on display as InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo’s parent) fell 1.5 % in intra-day trading.
For corporate mobility managers the incident is a sharp reminder of single-point vulnerabilities in India’s aviation infrastructure. November marks the start of peak relocation and project-travel season, and Delhi is a key hub for North-India assignments. Companies with time-critical cargo and fly-in-fly-out engineers suffered knock-on delays at Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad where rotations rely on Delhi aircraft.
AAI engineers had most systems restored by mid-afternoon, but a root-cause probe is exploring whether ageing servers or malware triggered the outage. The civil-aviation ministry has asked Delhi International Airport Limited to fast-track the planned AMSS upgrade now slated for Q2 2026. Until then, risk-mitigation steps include longer transit buffers and traveller tracking tools that push real-time delay alerts to employees.
