MANGALURU: An Indigo flight allegedly left behind six of its passengers and took off from the Bengaluru International Airport on Friday.
The Mangaluru bound flight – 6E6162 reportedly left the Bengaluru Airport at 2.45 pm, 10 minutes before its scheduled departure at 2.55 pm.
Two out of the six passengers told TNIE that they missed the flight despite having the boarding pass. When enquired, the Indigo staff reportedly told them that they had announced the early departure from the airport.
However, the six passengers were given a free ticket for the next flight (6E578) which took off at 8.45 pm (scheduled departure at 8.20 pm). The passengers reached Mangaluru Airport at 9.50 pm.
Two of the six passengers who had to take their connecting flights to Delhi missed their flights due to this incident.
An Indigo employee from the Customer Experience wing denied the allegation that the flight left 10 minutes in advance and claimed that it left at the scheduled time.
“The flight was out of the gate at 2.43 pm and departed the airport at 2.57 pm. We consider off-the-ground as departure time. However, I apologize to the passengers for the inconvenience they faced,” he said.
Further, he added that he will take up the matter with the management and operations team and check what went wrong.
He advised the customers to be at the airport two hours prior to the departure as the boarding gate is generally closed 25 minutes prior to the departure but it is subject to change as per ATC instructions to the pilot and other reasons.
He also said that the passengers have to reach the airport one hour before the scheduled departure of the flight but the passengers who missed the flight were late by 15-20 minutes.
Asked why all the passengers were given free flight tickets for the next flight if they were at fault, an Indigo spokesperson without giving a clear explanation said it is ‘very subjective’ and they take calls on availability (of tickets) and factors like senior citizens, expecting mothers etc.