Cyclone Michaung: 550 IndiGo flights cancelled amid heavy rain in Chennai

Heavy rain halted the capital city of Tamil Nadu's life yesterday as Cyclone Michaung hit the city, and over a thousand flights connecting Chennai have been cancelled since then. Let alone IndiGo Airlines had to cancel 550 flights across India after the airport was shut down due to the massive impact of heavy rain yesterday in the area. At the same time, Vistara and Air India suspended at least 10 and 16 flights from Chennai, respectively.

However, the rain has stopped now, leaving Chennai struggling to drain the floodwater from the city and assess the damages caused to the infrastructure by the heavy rain.

On Monday, Chennai airport had to shut down its runway after floodwater entered the airport; in addition, they also grounded all the planes. The airport resumed its operations this morning at 9 am. As the cyclone has now moved towards Andhra Pradesh, the authorities have shut down Visakhapatnam airport.

Even though IndiGo resumed its flights from Chennai around noon today, the Airline said they cancelled 60 flights today as well. Vistara Airlines has also resumed operations to and from Chennai.

The affected flyers will be offered a waiver on cancellation and rescheduling of flights, IndiGo said yesterday. Currently, the Airline has 15 planes parked in Chennai; these are the ones that were grounded yesterday after the airport was shut due to flooding. Vistara has also said they are contacting the affected flyers and helping them with other alternatives. Air India has also waived rescheduling charges for yesterday's and today's flights.

"The team made all efforts to minimise inconvenience to customers, including proactively cancelling select flights, and has been in constant touch with the impacted customers to offer regular updates and various alternatives such as rescheduling or refunds, as applicable," a Vistara spokesperson told NDTV.

Meanwhile, today, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said, "The severe cyclonic storm “MICHAUNG” (pronounced as Migjaum) over west-central Bay of Bengal along and off south Andhra Pradesh coast moved northwards with a speed of 10 kmph during past 06 hours and lay centred at 1130 hours ist of 5th December 2023 over the same region.”

Also Read: Cyclone Michaung latest updates: Chennai Airport resumes operations; 8 people dead so far