IRCTC Website Crashes on New Year's Eve

 

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website experienced a significant outage on New Year’s Eve, leaving thousands of users unable to access the platform for booking tickets and related services. The crash, attributed to an unexpected surge in user traffic, highlights the challenges of managing critical infrastructure during peak periods.

As millions of users logged onto the IRCTC platform to book tickets for holiday travel and celebratory plans, the system struggled to handle the sudden influx. According to preliminary reports, the website experienced an unprecedented spike in simultaneous user sessions, overwhelming its servers. This disruption affected both the website and the IRCTC mobile app, leaving users frustrated.

Technical experts suggested that despite IRCTC’s robust infrastructure, the extraordinary volume of traffic exceeded its designed capacity, leading to delays, error messages, and service interruptions.

Social media platforms were flooded with complaints from irate users, many of whom shared screenshots of failed transactions and error notifications. Travelers expressed concerns over missed opportunities to secure seats during a high-demand travel season, with some criticizing the lack of a backup system to handle such contingencies.

One user tweeted, "The IRCTC website crashing on New Year’s Eve is unacceptable. We depend on it for timely bookings, and this is a huge letdown."

IRCTC acknowledged the technical glitch and issued an official statement apologizing for the inconvenience caused to users. The corporation assured travelers that its technical team was working diligently to resolve the issue and restore full functionality. By midnight, partial services were resumed, but complete restoration took several hours.