Manchester-bound flight returns to Delhi after flying 13 hours; London-Mumbai diverted to Cairo

NEW DELHI: A call sign confusion led to IndiGo’s flight to Manchester on Monday flying for over 13 hours and then returning to Delhi from over Africa.

The reason: The aircraft operating was a wet-leased (hired with operating crew) Norse Atlantic Boeing 787 which had got the clearance. But being operated by IndiGo and the clearance being sought to enter Eritrea airspace as “iFly” (IndiGo code) led to confusion in the air traffic control there. Eventually, the aircraft took a U-turn and flew back to Delhi, where it landed at 2.22 pm, about 13 hours after taking off at 1.14 am.

IndiGo has all the required enroute clearance for operating these planes and this was just a very costly confusion. Belonging to an EU carrier, Norse Atlantic is following the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) bulletin to avoid West Asia completely. So unlike other carriers like Air India that overfly Saudi Arabia on its routes to and from Europe/UK and North America while bypassing the current enroute no-fly zones, Norse Atlantic resumed its Europe flights for IndiGo only recently after Feb 28. Completely avoiding West Asia, it flies to Africa and then goes to Europe from Eritrea side. Ditto on the way back.

This extra-long route is creating its own issues. IndiGo’s London-Mumbai flight on Sunday diverted to Cairo. It is expected to complete the journey on Tuesday. Air India had done a payload analysis for this route that bypasses West Asian airspace by taking the oceanic route to Africa, and found it unviable.

Regarding Monday’s return flight, IndiGo said in a statement: “Due to the evolving situation in and around West Asia, some of our flights may take longer routes or experience diversions. Our flight 6E 33, operating from Delhi to Manchester, had to return to its origin due to last-minute airspace restrictions owing to the ongoing situation in West Asia. We are working with the relevant authorities to explore the possibilities of resuming the journey. As always, safety and security of our customers, crew and aircraft is of utmost importance to us.”

EASA’s “conflict zone information bulletin” has asked airlines not to “operate within the affected airspace at all flight levels and altitudes”. The airspaces are of Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia.


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