‘I took one of India’s first flights in months. It was surreal’

As I checked in for one of the first flights in India in two months, the baggage-tag dispenser spat out five boarding passes for me. Given the morning I’d had, this latest glitch wasn’t much of a surprise.

I’d received a call around 1 a.m. from IndiGoNSE -1.86 % to say my flight from New Delhi to Mumbai was canceled. That’s it. No explanation. Turns out it was one of at least 80 flights canceled from the Indian capital on Monday, the day flights in the country were supposed to resume. Nobody I spoke to seemed to know what was happening, who needed to go into quarantine, or if planes would even be allowed to land at their destination. People were unsure if their tickets were of any use at all.