Delhi Airport ATC System Restored After Major Technical Glitch: Minister Orders Infrastructure Upgrade

Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu conducted a late-night review at the Air Navigation Services (ANS) Centre near Delhi Airport following a significant technical glitch in the Air Traffic Control (ATC) messaging system that disrupted flight operations.

The technical malfunction began on November 6 afternoon and extended into November 7, affecting the critical messaging system utilized by ATC for managing aircraft movements. This disruption resulted in delays and cancellations of 46 flights at one of India's busiest aviation hubs.

During the system outage, ATC personnel maintained flight operations manually to ensure safety and minimize passenger inconvenience.

Minister Naidu, accompanied by Civil Aviation Secretary Samir Kumar Sinha, AAI Chairman Vipin Kumar, and other key officials, visited the Delhi ANS Centre to evaluate the situation firsthand.

During this assessment, the Minister instructed the Chairman and Managing Director of Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) to increase manpower allocation to accelerate system restoration efforts.

Additionally, he directed that extra ATC staff be deployed at Delhi Airport to strengthen manual operations and reduce passenger disruptions during the technical downtime.

Following intensive efforts by technical teams and continuous monitoring by the Ministry, the ATC system was completely restored to automatic operation by November 8 afternoon. Officials confirmed that Saturday saw no flight cancellations.

Rammohan Naidu has ordered a comprehensive root-cause analysis to identify the factors behind the malfunction and prevent similar incidents in the future.

The Minister also directed officials to implement system upgrades, including additional or backup servers, to enhance ATC operations and improve the reliability of air traffic management systems across Indian airports.

From the beginning of the incident, teams from the Airports Authority of India (AAI), Air Navigation Services (ANS), and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) worked continuously to identify and fix the technical issue.

ECIL deployed additional engineers to support restoration efforts, while AAI provided extra personnel to maintain manual operations. Senior officials monitored the situation around the clock to prevent further service disruptions.