Ranvir Shorey wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “A rough account of what @IndiGo6E put us through yesterday: Our flight was scheduled for 2 p.m.All 8 of us checked in 2 hours prior as stipulated, and only then were we informed that the flight was 3 hours late due to bad weather (fog). We were not intimated prior to reaching the airport. Still, we did not complain, thinking there must have been a communication issue and being completely understanding, as we were aware that at this time of the year these things happen sometimes.”
He added, “The flight was now scheduled for 5 p.m. At 3 PM, after being checked in at the airport for more than 3 hours, we were told that the flight would now depart another 3 hours later at 8 PM! This seemed fishy to us, as the “fog” should be clearing up and not getting worse as the day progresses. One of my friends looked up the Indigo website to check the routing of our aircraft. It was very clearly said that the aircraft that was supposed to fly us was coming in from Kolkata, which had reported no fog issues and had already arrived in Bangalore. When we confronted the Indigo staff with this information, he simply said that the website has not been updated properly and gave us his “personal guarantee” that the flight will take off at around 8 p.m. This was important for me, as my child would be alone at home if I did not get back by around 10–10 p.m. At about 7 PM, the flight time was changed to 9 PM. I began to panic as this would leave me in a spot as a parent, but I still did not complain and somehow managed the situation.”
The post also read, “At 8 PM, we were told that now the flight will take off after 10 PM! This is when I lost my cool, as this would mean that I would not be able to get back home in time for my child! I reached out to the staff, who had given me his “personal guarantee” that the flight would take off at 8 p.m. He told me on the phone that he had left the airport(!) and that another staff member will now deal with me, still not telling me the real reason why the flight was delayed further and when it will take off! The new staff assigned to handle me tried the same, usual airline platitudes and lies to try to pacify me, and I told him not that it would not work with me anymore, as it is obvious that the delay is not due to fog! I appealed to his personal integrity as a human being instead of being a mouthpiece for the airline. Only after this did he make a few calls and finally tell us the real reason, which was that they did not have a pilot for the flight! He assured me that a pilot has now been assigned and the flight will take off by 10:30 p.m. By now, I was feeling completely helpless. I somehow made arrangements for someone to watch over my child, as I knew that we had been fed lies non-stop for the last 8 hours and were in a hopeless situation. After this, we had to face another 2-3 hours of lies and delays before a pilot showed up, and our flight took off at around midnight, 10 hours after the scheduled time of the flight! We will be filing a complaint for the trauma we have been doled out yesterday by @IndiGo6E in the name of air travel.”
A few days ago, Radhika Apte shared a video of being locked in an aeroplane at Mumbai airport. She took to her social media handle and shared the videos and photos. She captioned the post, “I had to post this! Today morning I had a flight at 8:30. It’s 10:50 now, and the flight has still not boarded. But the flight said we were boarding and put all the passengers in the aerobridge and locked it! The passengers, including small babies and elderly people, have been locked in for over an hour. The security won’t open the doors. The staff has absolutely no clue! Apparently, their crew hasn’t boarded. The crew had a change, and they are still waiting for a new crew, but they have no idea when they will arrive, so no one knows how long they’ll be locked inside. I managed to escape briefly to speak to the very stupid staff woman outside who kept saying there was no issue and no delay now that I’m locked inside, and they just told us that we would be here till at least 12 p.m., all locked in. No water, no loo. Thanks for the fun ride!!”.