Spicejet was caught in the middle of another storm on Wednesday, May 25 due to an alleged ransomware attack and delayed flights at the Delhi airport.
The controversy began when Mudit Shejwar, a Spicejet passenger, tweeted that his plane had failed to take off even after 80 minutes of boarding formalities had been completed.
A video has emerged on Twitter from a user identified as Mudit Shejwar – from inside a SpiceJet flight from Delhi to Dharamshala.
“On board flight SG2345 to Dharmshala, it’s been already 80 mins since we boarded the plane we have not taken off yet… the only communication is of some server down and issue with paper work for fuel, is this for real…” the irate traveller wrote at 7.28 am.
At 8.50 am he wrote again: “Close to 3 hrs still thr, no justified response from the team.”
At 9.02 am SpiceJet replied: “Hi Mudit, please note that certain SpiceJet systems faced an attempted ransomware attack last night that impacted and slowed down morning flight departures today. Our IT team has contained and rectified the situation and flights are operating normally now.”
However, at 9.36 am Mudjit tweeted again, this time with a video from inside the plane. “Operating normally?? We are stuck here since 3 hrs and 45 minutes… Neither cancelling nor operating, sitting in the flight not even the airport. No breakfast, no response!”
The 10-second video showed people standing around inside the cabin. “Even the ground staff is struggling, poor guys managing with juices cookies and peanuts!” Mudjit said.
This isn’t the first time SpiceJet flights have been delayed at Delhi International Airport. They were delayed last week due to issues with the airline’s payment to the Airports Authority of India.
A software glitch, according to an airline spokesperson, caused the daily payment to be delayed. “The automatic daily payment could not be processed due to a technical glitch in SAP,” a spokesperson said.
“The same is being made manually to AAI which has been apprised of the issue. SpiceJet’s flight operations are now continuing normally,” the spokesperson added.