Indian biggest carrier IndiGo's woes continue to grow, with flight cancellations and delays affecting several passengers between Dubai and Mumbai.

While some passengers faced shorter delays, others had to endure waiting for 10 hours. A Dubai resident told Khaleej Times that his relative faced a delay of almost 10 hours on Thursday night while waiting to fly to Mumbai. “My brother was due to depart from Dubai to Mumbai by the 12.15pm Indigo flight for some medical checkups,” said Mohammed.

“He was delayed by almost 10 hours. The flight took off at around 10pm on Thursday night. Luckily, he had booked all his appointments for Friday, so he didn’t face any issues.”

Another passenger, Satish, 27, arrived at Dubai International Airport (DXB) Terminal 1 on December 4 before 5pm for his 7pm IndiGo 6E 1454 flight to Mumbai. “We were already informed the plane from Mumbai was coming late so were already experiencing a delay.”

“First, we were told the 7.05pm was moved to 8.15pm. At 7.40pm, we went to the boarding gate but 8.15pm passed and still we were not able to board the plane. We approached the ground crew to ask what was happening, only to be told the flight was cancelled.”

“It was a full flight and we only had two options: Wait for the next flight, with no certainty what time it will happen or book with another airline at more than three times the fare we already paid for,” added Satish, who also had another issue as his visa was only single entry.

“Thankfully, when I left the airport, the immigration let me re-enter Dubai as my visa was still valid until early January and I did not actually leave Dubai,” he added, noting: “There were other passengers whose visa expired on Thursday.”

Other delayed flights

Several other Indigo flights leaving from the UAE have been delayed or are being expected to run late on Friday. The Dubai-Kozhikode flight which was scheduled to have left at 3:20 am on Friday morning eventually took off more than eight hours later at 11:29am.

Another Indigo flight to Kochi, which was scheduled to depart at 11:45am took off 30 minutes later at 12:15pm. A Dubai-Ahmedabad flight which was scheduled to take off at 5:15 am on Friday morning is now expected to depart at 3pm- a delay of almost 10 hours.

Indigo issues apology

Thursday’s flight cancellations happened on the same day the beleaguered Indian carrier issued a public apology.

"The last two days have seen widespread disruption across IndiGo’s network and operations. We extend a heartfelt apology to all our customers and industry stakeholders who have been impacted by these events," the airline said in a statement on X.

Over the last few days, hundreds of Indigo flights — especially domestic flights — have been canceled, with a lion's share of it being attributed to the country Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) rolling out new Flight Duty Time Limitations. The new rules mandate that pilots must be given 48 hours a week to rest and capped the number of night landings a pilot can perform in a week at two, as opposed to the previous six. The ruling came after increasing number of complaints from pilots about fatigue.

The country’s largest airline canceled over 500 flights on Friday- the fourth day of travel disruptions. It is expected that it could take several weeks for the backlog to be cleared. According to Indian media reports, on Friday the DGCA issued a notice to relax its instructions to all airline operators regarding the weekly rest requirements for crew members in view of the ongoing disruptions.