Crippling delays, lost luggage, violating safety norms and obnoxious staff — this is what passengers have experienced after opting for IndiGo airlines, the country’s private airline that claims to put customer safety and satisfaction as its USP.
In the national capital and other major cities, passengers are upset and unhappy and their awful experiences shred the tall claims made by such airlines into pieces.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the national regulator, has been flooded with hundreds of complaints by travellers against domestic airlines including IndiGo, that range from rude staff behaviour to abysmal customer services, poor handling of delayed flights, and lack of access for persons with disabilities.
And the numbers of such experiences are increasing by the day, with the management looking the other way to the concerns of its passengers and overworked employees.
Not allowed to board
“Indigo is an airline which doesn’t listen to any of its passengers, if he or she is late by even 5-10 minutes. They should cooperate with the passenger and I feel airlines should accommodate passengers in next flight on same sector or same day, if they are late,” Karan Aggarwal, a harassed passenger told NewsMobile.
Aggarwal, who had to go to Bhubaneshwar in February this year complained that he was not given the boarding pass and treated badly by the staff.
“I had reached the counters at 8.18am after getting my bag security checked and all to catch the flight for 8.55 am, but I was not given the boarding pass, as I suppose the flight was overbooked.”
“The ground staff was very rude; they harassed me and also misbehaved at the airport. Even after knowing that my baggage was security checked, they did not let me check-in. This was a really terrible and horrifying experience for me and it caused a lot of stress and mental pressure on me as I am a patient of high blood pressure and sugar.”
Compromising Passenger Safety
A regular passenger who didn’t want to be named, said that he was shocked when on July 20 morning the Indigo flight 6E 317 from Delhi to Hyderabad had passengers sitting on jump seats meant for the crew, as the airline had sold extra tickets. “This is a clear violation of all civil aviation norms and puts the safety of the crew and passengers are at risk, ” the passenger told NewsMobile. In other instances the emergency row seats have been sold to passengers for a price even if they are ill-equipped to handle the emergency exits as mandated by civil aviation norms.
Customer is King? No, sorry!
Shikha Singh, who chose Indigo for the first time, had an experience she would like to forget. She was not able to reach the airport on time. When she reached for customer service, the executive did not support her at all.
She says,”The lady who is handling customer grievances misbehaved with me and did not take any action on my situation and not even the airlines refunded my ticket fare and said that what you paid is lowest ticket fare which is not refundable. I had to book fresh ticket of Air India.”
“I am extremely disappointed with IndiGo service.” Â
Your baggage, not our responsibility
Rathindra Saha, who was travelling to Delhi from Mumbai complained that his bag was damaged during transit and the airlines did not take any step to compensate the passenger. In fact, NewsMobile’s executive editor Parvathy Bhardwaj had to go through the same ordeal. “When I picked up my suitcase from the conveyor belt, I noticed that the lock was broken and the zip was partly open. None of the IndiGo guys cooperated. Finally, I just had to move out, I had no choice.†She was traveling from Hyderabad to Delhi.
No kidding!
Another passenger complained that his wife who was travelling with an infant was harassed by the airline’s staff.
The passenger in a complaint wrote, “My wife was travelling from Bagdogra to Mumbai with an infant. As per IndiGo rules, she was carrying 15kg as check-in luggage and 7 kg as hand luggage for herself and the baby each.The hand luggage put in one bag because she was carrying the baby. At the ticket counter, she requested the staff to submit the hand baggage as well.The manager started arguing that she is over luggage by 10 kg and was forcing her to pay. When I explained the manager about IndiGo rules, she asked my wife to carry both the hand baggage and the baby herself.”
The management has been pushing this to ensure profitability but comprising passenger safety.
Where is my luggage?
Indigo is accounted for more than one-third of missing baggage complaints during January
According to official figures, of the total 1,197 complaints for various service deficiencies of airlines during the month, 274 were about baggage issues with 103 complaints coming from passengers who travelled by low-cost carrier IndiGo, which as the market leader also carries more than a third of total passengers.
Apart from baggage problems, other complaints received by the airlines are related to issues such as refund, flights, customer service and fares, among others.
Officials said these complaints have led the DGCA to tighten the screw on airlines, especially on checking instances of rude or unhelpful behaviour of their staff at airports and in the aircraft. However the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the government needs to ensure that stringent action is taken against these errant airlines with poor safety and customer satisfaction standards.