As Indian airline IndiGo faces widespread cancellations across airports, leaving customers stranded, flights delayed for hours on end, and airports full of angry passengers, CEO Pieter Elbers issued an apology on Friday.

"We have experienced severe operational disruptions for the past few days. The crisis continued to aggravate with today, December 5 being the most severely impacted day, with the number of cancellations well over a thousand or more than half the number of our daily flights."

"On behalf of IndiGo, I would like to extend our sincere apologies for the major inconvenience this has cause to many of our customers," Elbers said. Addressing customers, the CEO outlined what he called "three lines of action" to resolve the crisis.

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1. Customer communication

Messages have been sent with details like refunds, information, cancellations, and customer support measures. The airline also stepped up its call centre capacity.

2. Customers with cancelled flights to avoid airport

With customers stranded mostly at the nation's largest airports on Thursday, the airline's goal was to ensure they travel by Friday, which Elbers said "will be achieved". The airline asked customers whose flights are cancelled not to arrive at the airport.

3. Cancellations on December 5

Cancellations were made on December 5 to align crew and planes "to be where they need to start afresh" on Saturday morning, Elbers added.

With earlier measures not enough, the December 5 cancellations resulted from a "reboot" of all systems and schedules, which are imperative for progressive improvements starting from December 6, he said.

The airline expects to see cancellations below 1,000 on Saturday. IndiGo CEO thanked India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation for their support in terms of "providing specific FDTL implementation relief."

The CEO said a "return to a full, normal operation" can be expected between December 10 and 15.

To customers with a "shaken belief" in IndiGo", the CEO said teams and frontline staff have been working relentlessly to address the situation, restore trust and strengthen it over time.

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