Indigo offloads passenger forcibly after he lodged protest

IndiGo has once again landed itself in a direct conflict with passengers. In the latest instance,  a heart surgeon from Bengaluru, Dr Saurabh Rai, was forcibly offloaded from flight 6E 541 at Lucknow Airport last Tuesday evening by the airline staff after he complained of mosquitos inside the aircraft. Fellow passengers claimed that after Dr Rai boarded, he complained to the crew about mosquitos flying around. But the staff curtly asked him to take another flight to Bengaluru, they said. Neither the staff nor the security men arranged any vehicle to drive Dr Rai back to the airport lounge; he walked all the way back, they noted.

While IndiGo staff at Amausi Airport in Lucknow remained tight-lipped, the airline’s Twitter handle @IndiGo6E put out a tweet on Monday: “Mr. Saurabh Rai was offloaded on from 6E541 for unruly behavior. Mr. Rai had initially expressed concerns regarding mosquitos on board. Before his concerns could be addressed, he became aggressive and used threatening language.”

“...Keeping in mind safety protocols, as well as the passenger’s unruly behavior, the pilot-in-command decided to offload Mr.Rai,” it said.

This is not the first time the budget carrier has been caught on the wrong side of customer relations.

Last November, Indigo had to apologise to a passenger, Ms Urvashi Parikh Viren, after she fell off her wheelchair while being assisted by its staff at Lucknow airport. The Airports Authority of India, which operates the Lucknow airport, had even rapped the airline’s staff who had pushed Viren’s wheelchair towards the arrival hall, “for gross negligence, as he chose the wrong path on the tarmac and mishandled the passenger.” 

Just days before that, a video of an October incident, in which a passenger is seen manhandled by its staff at Delhi airport, was widely shared on social media. The airline initially issued a four-page statement defending its staff, saying they were only acting in self-defence. IndiGo chief Aditya Ghosh later offered his “personal apologies”, saying “this does not reflect our culture.”

It may be noted that a parliamentary committee report on flier satisfaction, which was submitted earlier this year, specifically advised IndiGo to adopt a consumer-friendly approach while dealing with passengers. The committee had also pulled up Aditya Ghosh, IndiGo’s president, for suggesting that the staff members of the airline hired from tier-II and III cities were often untrained in soft skills and unable to speak fluent English, as many of them went to government schools.

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The report criticised the aviation industry, saying that of all the customer complaints, 30.5% flyers had poor customer service experiences.

Source: DNA India