New Delhi, Nov 8 (IANS) Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu visited the Delhi Air Navigation Services (ANS) Centre near the airport to review the situation, after a technical glitch in the Air Traffic Control (ATC) messaging system at Delhi Airport led to delays and cancellations of several flights, an official statement said on Saturday.

He was accompanied by Secretary (MoCA) Samir Kumar Sinha, Chairman (AAI) Vipin Kumar, and senior officials.

The minister directed the ECIL CMD to deploy additional technical manpower to expedite the restoration efforts. To minimise passenger inconvenience, Naidu also directed that more ATC staff be deployed at Delhi Airport to support manual operations and ensure smooth handling of air traffic during the system downtime.

From the onset, teams from Airports Authority of India (AAI), Air Navigation Services (ANS), and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) worked round the clock to identify and rectify the issue.

ECIL promptly deputed additional manpower to assist in the restoration process. During this period, ATC staff efficiently managed flight operations manually to ensure passenger safety and minimise inconvenience.

“Owing to the coordinated efforts of ECIL engineers, ATC personnel, and the ministry’s proactive monitoring, the system was fully restored to automatic mode by afternoon of November 8 (today). There were no flight cancellations today owing to the issue,” said the ministry in a statement.

Later, Naidu visited the ATC Tower to review normalised operations and appreciated the commitment of the teams that worked overnight to resolve the issue.

Further, the minister has directed that a detailed root-cause analysis be undertaken to prevent recurrence of such glitches in the future. He also instructed officials to plan for more system advancements, including additional or fallback servers to strengthen ATC operations.

After flight operations at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) experienced major disruptions on Friday due to a technical fault in the Air Traffic Control (ATC) system, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said on Saturday it has successfully addressed the technical issue in the Automatic Message Switching System (AMSS).

—IANS

na/