IRCTC website suffers 4th outage since December, bookings hit
11 Jan 2025

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website went down again today, the fourth time since late December.

The outage rendered users unable to book or cancel tickets, especially during peak 'tatkal' booking hours.

The repeated outages have raised concerns over the reliability of this critical platform, for railway passengers across the country.

Users express frustration
User reactions

Many frustrated users took to social media platforms to voice their complaints about the IRCTC website outage.

They reported encountering an error message stating, "Booking and cancelation for all sites will not be available for the next hour. We deeply regret the inconvenience caused."

This disruption has only added to the growing dissatisfaction among users who rely on this platform for their travel needs.

Outage coincides with peak 'tatkal' booking hours
Timing concerns

The timing of the outage has only added to user frustrations.

"#IRCTC is down exactly during tatkal time. If I cannot find the only available Premium Tatkal tickets once the site is back, it will clearly be a big scam during the festive period!!" one user wrote on social media.

Clearly, the platform's performance during crucial booking periods is being criticized.

Previous outages and user complaints
Past disruptions

Notably, the IRCTC website has a history of such outages, with two incidents reported in late December.

These disruptions have resulted in a slew of complaints from users over payment gateway failures, duplicate bookings, and cancelations made by IRCTC.

One user even compared the platform's services to those designed by school students, emphasizing the level of dissatisfaction among its user base.

Calls for immediate action to address IRCTC outages
Urgent appeal

The frequent outages have led users to demand immediate action from the authorities.

One user tagged Railways Ministry and IRCTC in a post, saying, "What's with the constant downtime on your platform? Travelers are left stranded with no way to book or cancel tickets. This is unacceptable and causes immense inconvenience. Please fix this recurring issue immediately!"