Dear IndiGo,
I used to brag about you.
In boardrooms, in classrooms, even in casual chai conversations, when someone asked “Which airline should I take?”, my answer was instant: IndiGo. Clean planes, sharp on-time performance, polite staff, no nonsense. You were the Harvard Business School case study of Indian aviation — the lean, mean, profitable machine that everyone else tried to copy.
That version of you is dead. And last week, on a simple Mumbai–Delhi–Mumbai round trip, I attended its funeral.
Act I: The Outbound Journey (BOM–DEL, 6E 2325)
Scheduled departure: 16:00.
Seat: 18A.
Next to me, an elderly gentleman (late 70s) in 19B.
What actually happened:
- 14:30 – Reach gate 42 as displayed on the app and boarding pass.
- 15:10 – Gate screen goes blank. No announcement, no WhatsApp message, nothing. Ten passengers (including the gentleman in 19B and me) realise only when the IndiGo flight number vanishes.
- New gate: 56. A 12-minute sprint across Mumbai T2. Your staff’s defence: “We left someone at the old gate to inform.” If that someone existed, they were invisible.
Delay reason announced: “Late arrival of incoming aircraft.”
Reality visible from the window: the same incoming aircraft taxied past us, circled the airport, and then waited 20 minutes on the tarmac before coming to an empty bay. Twenty minutes that could have been used to board us earlier.
We finally pushed back after 18:10. Two hours and ten minutes late. No apologies, no water, no explanation beyond the scripted loop.
Act II: 33,000 feet without humanity
Mid-flight, the gentleman in 19B pressed the call button. He looked pale.
“Ma’am, I’m feeling very low… can I please get a cup of coffee?”
Crew response (verbatim):
“Sorry sir, pre-booked meals are being served first. After that only we can take new orders.”
He clarified he was willing to pay.
“Sir, we are accepting only credit cards right now, no debit cards or cash.”
He had a debit card. He also had age, dignity, and a genuine medical discomfort. None of that mattered.
While he sat quietly defeated, three crew members stood three rows behind, giggling about something on a phone. At 33,000 feet, when no manager is watching, culture reveals itself. Yours revealed indifference.
Act III: The Return That Never Was (DEL–BOM, 6E 2015)
Three hours before departure, a curt SMS:
“Your flight 6E 2015 has been cancelled due to operational reasons.”
No reason beyond that phrase you hide behind.
No proactive rebooking.
No hotel voucher even though the next available IndiGo flight was 18+ hours later.
I ended up buying a last-minute Vistara ticket for ₹28,000 — on top of the ₹8,000 I had already paid you. Total damage for a simple round trip: ₹36,000 and one full working day lost.
That financial pain I could have absorbed.
What I cannot absorb is the absolute silence on empathy.
This isn’t bad luck. This is design.
You didn’t break last week. You have been breaking for years — slowly, silently, profitably.
- Planes scheduled with 25–30 minute turnarounds that look great on spreadsheets until one delay cascades into fifty.
- Crew rostered so tightly that the moment one pilot reaches FDTL limits, entire sectors collapse.
- Ground staff incentivised only on “on-time departure” (pushback time), not actual departure or passenger experience.
- A culture that treats rule-bending as a competitive advantage until DGCA finally wakes up and enforces CAR Section 3 Series C Part IV.
You optimised for everything except resilience and humanity.
Success made you believe the rules don’t apply to you.
New DGCA crew-duty norms, weather, fog, ATC delays — these are not “unforeseen.” They are aviation. You just chose to run the airline as if they would never arrive.
They have arrived. And you are naked.
I still wanted to forgive you
An airline can be late. An airline can cancel. Weather happens, crew fall sick, engines fail. Passengers understand “acts of God.”
What passengers do not forgive is “acts of indifference.”
A simple “We are sorry this happened to you, sir. Here is a full refund + ₹5,000 voucher on us” would have kept me quiet — perhaps even retained me.
Instead, your Twitter team asked me for PNR in DM, then ghosted me for four days. Your customer relations email address still sends auto-replies promising a response in “3–5 working days.”
Empathy didn’t just vanish from the cabin crew that day. It has been systematically removed from your processes, your training, your KPIs, your leadership vocabulary.
Goodbye, old friend
For the first time in fifteen years, the first filter on MakeMyTrip and Google Flights is no longer “Cheapest” or “Earliest.”
It is now “Anything but IndiGo.”
You may not care. You still have 60% market share and load factors north of 90%.
But trust, once cracked at 33,000 feet, rarely lands smoothly again.
A once-loyal customer who defended you for a decade,
Dr Sanjay Aro More like #NeverAgain
