IndiGo is one airline in India which continues to be in the news for all wrong reasons. The Indian low cost carrier has been involved in different controversies, from providing bad quality food to a domestic flight's diversion in a neighbouring country due to bad weather. However, the latest incident of a frustrated passenger assaulting pilot, saw the airline getting all the sympathy from the netizens.
The incident on Sunday, took place on a flight en route to Goa from Delhi. In a viral video of the incident, one can see the passenger moving towards the pilot announcing the flight delay. Within moments, the annoyed passenger launches an assault with multiple punches against the pilot. The flyer was later immediately deplaned and arrested by the Delhi police. A detailed probe and legal action will be followed against the unruly flyer, said Delhi police in their statement.
Social Media Sides With IndiGo
Many users including prominent celebs and politicians have came forward to condemn the on-flight assault incident. Bollywood superstar Sonu Sood criticised the attack while stressing over needs of self defence programs for airline staff.
"Soon self defence training programs will become mandatory for the airline staff, if people continue to behave in such unruly ways!!" said Sood in a post.
"Ban him from flying forever," said a user while reacting to the attack video.
"Its high time some of you guys studied a bit of topography and geography. No pilot voluntarily delays a flight," said another user while showing support to the pilot involved in the assault.
Airline Slammed For Mismanagement
While some people supported the pilot and the airlines on social media, some also came forward and slammed the airlines and the aviation ministry over sheer mismanagement, further leading to such incidents.
Shiv Sena UBT MP Priyanka Chaturvedi was among the first ones to react to the shocking assault video. While criticising the attack, but blaming the airline and aviation ministry for such incident, Chaturvedi in her post said, "This is absolutely uncalled for, one can understand the frustration of long wait, delays, bad service, roster duty changes. But no you can’t hit the crew. It isn’t their fault alone!"
Further, stressing on the professionalism of the airlines, she lashed out at the DGCA and the Ministry of Civil Aviation for not holding airlines accountable for such incidents involving long flight delays. She also tagged Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia seeking his attention over the shameful incident on the flight.
"More importantly, all of this could have been avoided only if we had @DGCAIndia , @MoCA_GoI doing their job, seeking accountability from airlines. But no. Will @JM_Scindia ji take cognisance? Yes we need airports but before that we need airlines that are professional! Crying shame that we are reduced to this," she added.
"2 hours ki flight ko 13 hours lagega toh kya karega aadmi," said a user while justifying the passenger's rage due to long flight delay.
Another user discussed about the issues that passengers face due to uninformed flight delays. "how about vice versa . ppl waiting hours without information on airport for their flight. if we are late we can't onboard when they are late do they give penalty comp breakfast and rescheduling is not penalty compared to what they do in similar case with passenger," he wrote in his comment.
IndiGo Not New To Controversy
This is not the only incident involving IndiGo, the airline has been under scrutiny for various reasons in recent times. Just a day ago, a special IndiGo flight on which Congress leaders including Rahul Gandhi were to travel to Imphal to kick-start the 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra' was delayed at the Delhi airport. The flight was delayed due to low visibility triggered by dense fog conditions.
On the same day, a passenger took to his social media account and expressed his anguish after facing a 7-hour flight delay. His flight from Kolkata to Bengaluru was delayed several times resulting in seven hour delay and ultimately missing his international flight from Bengaluru.
The passenger alleged that IndiGo employees initially resisted the cancellation, stating, "We won't do cancellations." The airlines then responded to his query and assured him a refund within '5-7 business days.'
On Jan 13, actress Radhika Apte had a awful experience while flying with Indigo. The actress claimed that she along with other passengers were locked in the aerobridge for hours without any information from the airline regarding flight delay.
She took to her Instagram handle to share photos and videos of being locked up in the aerobridge and stated that the flight was delayed without any prior announcement. "Today morning I had an 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!" Radhika wrote in her post.
On January 12, a domestic IndiGo flight was diverted to Bangladesh due to bad weather conditions. The flight originally from Mumbai to Guwahati was diverted and landed at Dhaka airport, nearly 400 kilometres away from its destination. This manoeuvre resulted in several hours of delay for over 170 passengers onboard.
'No Seat Cushion Flight'
Another major goofup by IndiGo came to light when a passenger shared his harrowing experience while travelling via an IndiGo flight last week. On X (formerly Twitter), the passenger shared a photo of a missing seat cushion on an IndiGo flight. He further complained that the flight was delayed by one and a half hours.
The response he received from the airline was totally surprising. "Hi, we deeply regret to note this. We request you to kindly share your PNR via DM so we may look into this further. -Team IndiGo," the airline posted in response to the complainant.
