Fewer cancellations but chaos continues, fares still sky high on day 3 of IndiGo crisis

In front of Gate number 5 of T1, a newly-wed woman – dressed in a red saree and heavy jewellery — slept on a luggage trolley. She had got married just a few hours back, and was scheduled to travel with her in-laws to Odisha.  “We were at the wedding… How will we know that flights were being cancelled? Pata rehta toh aadmi doosra jugaad karta (If we had known earlier, we would have figured out another way) but we got no message,” said Bhagwan Sharma (58), a relative, as he got up after one of his relative said that there are chances the flight will take off.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation MoCA  on Saturday issued an official directive for all the airlines mandating strict adherence to the fare caps. However, passengers were still scratching their hides looking at the airfares.

Booked in the first week of October, the four flight tickets back home cost the Panda family around Rs. 27,000. However, Panda claimed that the return tickets are now costing him Rs 2 lakh. “This is absurd. I’m not travelling to another country. We, Indians, are facing a crisis,” he said.

In its directive, MoCA said, “These caps will remain in force until the situation fully stabilises. The objective of this directive is to maintain pricing discipline in the market, prevent any exploitation of passengers in distress, and ensure that citizens who urgently need to travel — including senior citizens, students, and patients — are not subjected to financial hardship during this period.”

Another male passenger who had a business meeting scheduled in Bengaluru, tried to check his options. He was told by one airline that all flights were booked till December 9. And then he managed to get a ticket for Rs 65,000, scheduled to fly after December 9. “Nobody is following the guidelines, they all are extorting money. More than me, people who have connecting flights are suffering,” he said, adding that customer care of IndiGo has been of no use.

A fellow passenger standing behind him said, “…you know, the sad part is that even if the flight is cancelled, they are still selling tickets online. The price for Bengaluru for me was Rs 70,000 on Air India airlines. All airlines are taking advantage of the situation,” he added.

“This is the first and the last time I’m travelling with IndiGo,” said second-year college student Aryan Dev from Nepal who has scheduled college semester exams from December 9 in Dehradun. “My first flight got rescheduled from 3 pm to 6 pm but I am unable to get my boarding pass,” he said, standing in the long queue at the reservation counter, along with hundreds of passengers.

At the reservation counter, restless passengers tried to get a solution as the crowd swelled. Several alleged a poor number of staff stationed to assist the affected passengers.