14 IndiGo flights cancelled at Goa's Dabolim airport

Panaji, Dec 6 (PTI) At least 14 domestic flights of IndiGo from Goa's Dabolim airport were cancelled on Saturday due to the ongoing disruption of the airline's operations, a senior official said.

Several passengers were seen stranded outside the Dabolim airport, located in South Goa, as some of the cancellations were announced at the last minute.

As per a post on the airport's X handle, 14 flights, which were to take off for Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Cochin, Kolkata, Bangalore, Delhi and Indore, were cancelled till Saturday afternoon.

The airport management on Friday appealed to the passengers to check their latest flight status before heading to the airport.

The flight disruptions have cast a shadow on Goa's tourism industry, with stakeholders fearing a drop in footfall at a time when the tourism season is at its peak in the coastal state.

Jack Sukhija, president of the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa, on Friday said that IndiGo enjoys more than 60 per cent share in the Indian aviation market and disruptions in its flight operations will have an adverse impact on the tourism industry.

He said the huge disruptions will definitely have an impact on the tourism industry, a key revenue earner for Goa.

On Friday, IndiGo cancelled over 1,000 flights from across airports.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Friday provided temporary relief to IndiGo, by rolling back the night duty definition to 12 am-5 am from 12 am-6 am earlier, and allowing its pilots to do six night landings from two earlier, besides other relaxations.

Meanwhile, the pilots' body, Airlines' Pilots Association (ALPA) India, has taken a "strong" objection to the DGCA's "selective and unsafe" relief to IndiGo, saying that the relaxations have not just "destroyed regulatory parity but also placed millions of passengers at "heightened risk".

Following the meeting convened by the Ministry of Civil Aviation with ALPA India and other pilot associations on Friday, the ministry announced that it has decided to place the implementation of the revised Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) in abeyance.

Notably, IndiGo was the first carrier to oppose the new FDTL norms for pilots when they were introduced in January 2024, with a March implementation timeline.

While the first phase of these FDTL norms came into force in July, the second phase, which reduced the number of night landings from six to two earlier, was implemented from November 1. PTI RPS GK