IndiGo says 30 flights to be cancelled daily, denies 130 called off Friday

Budget carrier IndiGo on Friday said scheduled cancellations of 30 flights every day would continue till March 31 and denied that 130 flights were being cancelled on Friday.

IndiGo's statement came a day after media reports said the airline would cancel 130 flights on Friday. The carrier also said that out of the listed 130 flights, it was operating 120 flights, "as scheduled, with more than 20,000 travelling passengers".

In a statement, IndiGo said it was maintaining its position "regarding scheduled cancellations of 30 flights per day until March 31, 2019".

However, it said these cancellations do not include NOTAMs (Notice to Airmen) which are issued by various airports due to operational reasons.

Generally, NOTAMs are issued to airline operations to inform them about airspace restrictions.

On Thursday, when asked whether the airline was cancelling 130 flights on Friday, an IndiGo spokesperson said it has not cancelled any additional flights other than the schedule cancellations. However, no formal statement was issued to this effect.

"As stated earlier, the anticipated cancellations are 30 flights per day. The operations will be completely normalised by the start of the summer schedule from March 31.

"Additionally, a NOTAM in Bangalore started effective today (February 14), which caused additional 40 flight cancellations, rescheduling for which had been completed a month back and passengers were informed and reaccomodated accordingly," the airline said in a statement on Thursday.