NEW DELHI, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- India's Delhi airport on Friday announced that all IndiGo domestic flights departing Delhi have been cancelled until midnight.

IndiGo, in a separate statement, also confirmed the cancellations of all its domestic flights from Delhi airport and expressed apologies to its customers who have been impacted by these cancellations.

The cancellations come a day after India's civil aviation watchdog, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, red-flagged the lack of IndiGo ground staff at Delhi's Terminal 1 to deal with the surge in stranded passengers of the airline.

The chaos in the airline has been going on for the past four days due to its failure to plan for new flight duty timings imposed on pilots.

As per the new pilot duty rules, the amount of mandatory rest per week for pilots has been increased by 12 hours to 48 hours.

The cancellations in the IndiGo flights have confused tens of thousands of passengers who are worried about extended delays and soaring travel costs.

Reports said the airline has already cancelled over 500 flights scheduled on Friday, including the now-scrapped Delhi-outbound services. Enditem