NEW DELHI: Recurring delays of Indigo flights across the country by five to seven hours throughout the day and the absence of information on the exact departure time caused much agony to passengers on Tuesday.
Five flights were cancelled while thousands of passengers suffered due to the delays on account of multiple reasons. Many of them highlighted their plight and reached out to the Civil Aviation Ministry and the aviation regulator through social media.
Indigo flights from Mumbai to Ahmedabad (6E 2347), Vadodara (6E 5126); Vadodara to Delhi (6E 6662) and Delhi to Vadodara (6E 5066) as well as Vadodara to Mumbai (6E 6087) were cancelled.
Indigo did not respond to repeated queries on the cancellations. An Indigo source conceded there were delays. Elaborating on the reasons, the source attributed it to operational reasons, delay in the arrival of incoming flights which subsequently delayed the outgoing one and bad weather were among the reasons cited by him. He ruled out the A320 software upgradation and stated that it had been completed by Sunday and was not connected with the delays on Tuesday.
Flyer Seerat Garewal posted on X: "Had the worst experience with Indigo today. Flight from Delhi to Bombay was at 12.45 pm, then got delayed to 2.20 pm, then 4.20 pm, then 5 pm and finally took off at 5.30 pm. No food, no compensation and on top of that they did not even inform about the inconvenience."
Asmita Mukherjee, travelling with an infant said, “Flight no 6e 6273 was first delayed for one and half hours, then delayed by 15 more minutes. Now they are saying the flight is delayed indefinitely. I am travelling with an infant. What’s the issue? DGCA, can you please intervene?”
Another flyer was put off with the lack of information and rude behaviour of the Indigo staff. “Indigo, I was scheduled to travel by flight 6E 6768 and got delayed multiple times. The original departure for 9.15 pm has been scheduled for 5.20 am. The staff behaviour is absolutely horrible. So rude. Not ready to help at all…need help.”
Avinash Kumar had to take a flight from Varanasi to Surat with a layover at Delhi. In a series of tweets, he said, “I had a flight from Varanasi to Surat via Delhi today, Dec 2. After waiting for 7.5 hrs and continuous flight delay, you inform me that it will be delayed further for another 6 hrs. I am stuck here with no support from Indigo staff. 13:30 hrs halt at an airport where I don’t even reside.” He demanded a refund for his flight.
Indigo had a standardised apology and a delay attributed to “operational reasons” to most of the complaints.