IndiGo server down at KIA, thousands stranded for hours

Throwing the travel plans of thousands of air passengers into total disarray, IndiGo airline's passenger system server was down for over 30 minutes at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) here early Monday morning.

The cascading effect disrupted flight schedules not only in Bengaluru but all across the country. In an official statement, IndiGo said, “Due to some technical reasons, IndiGo server at Bangalore airport was down from 4:29am to 5:07am this morning. The server is restored and functioning normally. We regret the inconvenience caused to our passengers.”

Already facing massive early morning queues due to heightened security at the gates, Monday's server issue had passengers in deep trouble. IndiGo counters of departure terminals in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai had long queues of passengers awaiting check-in procedures.

Unable to access the server, airline staff had to issue manual boarding passes to passengers. This process was slow, and travellers complained.

Many took to social media, posting photos and videos, ventilating their frustrations. Tweeted one of the many passengers, Deepesh Agarwal: “Sea of people with not even a single check-in happening. Server down, apparently.”

For another traveller, Shivkumar R, the scene outside the IndiGo counters was nothing but 'chaos.' He tweeted, “Server issue causes piling up of check in queues.” After almost two hours, he said, “Resolved partially and got into the correct flight as of now.”

Scenes inside the departure terminal in Hyderabad was no different. Huge queues were the norm, with many unaware of the problem. One passenger from Mumbai tweeted that over 700 passengers were in the queue.

IndiGo operates over 1,300 flights across destinations daily. Any disruption can trigger massive cascading effects, delays and diversions. A similar glitch in Air India's passenger system server had sparked huge disruptions globally.