“Even now, the staff are telling me they are not sure when I will get my bags. I have health issues and couldn’t reach customer care despite trying many times, and the responses at the counter were rude and vague. I paid full fare, but after the cancellation, they are giving me only a small refund, calling the rest ‘taxes’. At my age, this kind of treatment is very difficult, and I’m not the only one, many passengers here are facing the same issue,” she added.
‘Staff rude, their answers vague’
Passengers said customer service at the Indigo booth in Terminal 1 was poor, with staff often unable to provide concrete answers. “The customer service is poor, IndiGo booth personnel are rude and vague, and they are wasting our time. This is what all passengers who queued up in front of the booth felt,” said Uday Mishra, whose flight to Bengaluru was cancelled. “I have been waiting for my luggage since 11 am,” he added.
Mishra said, “No one is saying anything. They just keep repeating, ‘It will come now,’ but there’s no food, no water, nothing. My flight kept shifting from 3 am to 4 pm, then 6.30 pm, then 10 pm, then 1 am, and we sat the whole night before it was finally cancelled. Our boarding and baggage check-in was done, so we went home and came back again this morning, and since then, we have been standing in line with no idea what is happening. If you are cancelling flights like this, then just close the operations, but at least return our luggage. How long are we supposed to wait?”
Other passengers expressed frustration with rising fares on alternative airlines. Seema Neb, travelling to Dehradun, said, “I was supposed to fly from Mumbai to Dehradun for a wedding, but my flight kept getting delayed before it was finally cancelled after we had already checked in. Inside the terminal, we weren’t even allowed to exit until we shouted for an IndiGo staffer to come.”
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‘Senior citizens lying on granite floors’
“Since yesterday, all they have told us is that our bags are ‘coming,’ but no one has actually checked anything. I even tried switching to Air India yesterday, but a ticket that usually costs around Rs 10,000 was showing as Rs 44,000. How can we book another airline when our money is stuck with IndiGo and fares everywhere else have shot up? Senior citizens are lying on granite floors because there is no food, no water, no assistance,” she said.
“We have spent money on transport, parking, and meals just to keep coming back. Who will compensate us for any of this? There is absolutely no accountability from IndiGo. We are just being made to wait endlessly,” Neb added.
International passengers arriving from England also faced exhaustion and confusion. “We have both flown in from England after extremely long and exhausting international journeys,” said Ajay Bopara who had come from Manchester. His co-passenger, Harpal Sen, originally from Gujarat was visiting London on a tourist visa. “We have now been stranded here for more than 30 hours,” he said.
“IndiGo cancelled our connecting flights after checking in our luggage at T2, and since then, nobody has any idea where our bags are. They keep sending us from one counter to another, from one terminal to the next, with no clear answers. We are not even demanding refunds or apologies anymore, just give us our luggage so we can go home,” Bopara said.
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“After travelling all the way from England, we are exhausted, our legs are hurting, and yet there’s no support, no communication, nothing. We are stuck here without our bags and without any proper response from the airline,” he added.
Incomplete refunds, additional costs incurred
Passengers complained that refunds were incomplete, with some saying the airline deducted large amounts, calling them ‘taxes’. Several also highlighted additional costs incurred for food, transport, parking, and alternate arrangements while trying to retrieve their luggage.
Airport officials noted that the updated FDTL rules, which limit duty hours for pilots and cabin crew, have disrupted IndiGo’s rostering and created a shortage of deployable crew across key sectors, leading to cascading schedule delays, particularly on high-density routes such as Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai. IndiGo has offered full refunds or free rebooking for affected passengers, but the airline acknowledged that uneven crew rotations meant delays and cancellations could continue through the day.
For stranded passengers, however, the immediate concern is not flights or refunds, but simply getting their luggage. As Lulu, Mishra, and others demonstrated, the lack of coordination, unclear communication, and poor handling at the airport have left many frustrated, exhausted, and financially disadvantaged, adding another layer to the disruption caused by IndiGo’s ongoing operational challenges.
