Check-in errors to baggage trouble: Why most of your flights were delayed in December

Nearly half of the flights that touched the Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) runway were delayed in December due to a chain reaction of previous delays and other errors by airlines, a CSIA report showed on Monday.

Out of the 9,103 flights that departed and 9,081 arrivals from CSIA, 45% departures and arrivals were delayed, the data from CSIA showed.

Air India (flight code AI) had the highest percentage of flights delay in the month of December, for both departures and arrivals at CSIA.  This was followed by Indigo for 50% delays in departures and GoAir for 50% delays in arrivals. 

For the national carrier a total of 1330 Air India (AI) flights that took off from the airport, 50% departures were delayed and and 65% of the 1323 arrivals were not on time.

IndiGo (flight code 6E), which prides itself on on-time performance (OTP) registered delays in 50% departures and 38% arrivals. 2,738 IndiGo flights took off from CSIA while 2,732 IndiGo flights arrived at the airport. 

Jet Airways (flight code 9W) also faced arrival issues as 43% of 3039 flights were delayed and 38% of the 3045 departures were delayed.

Other airlines like GoAir, Singapore and British Airways also recorded 40%, 45% and 44% departure delays respectively and 50%, 34% and 45% of their flights arrived late, respectively. 

Data provided by the airport showed ''reactionary reasons'' as the main reason for the delay of flights in December for most of the carriers.

International Air Transport Association (IATA) defines reactionary reasons as late arrival of aircraft from another flight or previous sector.

Reactionary reasons also includes passenger or load connection, awaiting load or passengers from another flight, protection of stranded passengers onto a new flight, check-in error, aircraft rotation, cabin crew rotation, operations control, rerouting, diversion, consolidation, aircraft change for reasons other than technical, industrial action within own airline and industrial action outside own airline.

Image Source: IATA report

Jet Airways had 548 of its flights delayed because of reactionary reasons; while IndiGo had 514 flights; Air india 325 flights, and GoAir 232 flights due to the same reason.