Wednesday, Apr 17, 2024 | Last Update : 03:58 AM IST
Panel slams IndiGo over rude staff
Airline slammed for failure to provide even diabetic passengers with food and water.
New Delhi: A parliamentary panel has severely slammed low cost carrier and aviation market leader IndiGo for incidents involving misbehaviour with passengers by airline staff, asking the airline to probe the reason behind the rude behaviour of its employees.
The panel also slammed IndiGo for the state of its check-in counters and for failure to provide even diabetic passengers with food and water on board if these have not been pre-booked by the passenger. Lambasting various airlines for over-charging passengers for fares ahead of festivals, the panel advised the civil aviation ministry to consider fixing an upper limit of the air-tickets for every sector.
The panel — -the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture — in its report took notice of reports of long queues at check-in counters and passengers missing their flights, saying that airlines are over-booking flights and then creating artificial situations to deny boarding to passengers. The panel also slammed private airlines for levying arbitrary cancellation fees. The panel brought out the report on “issues related to improving consumers’ satisfaction of airlines”.
The report was tabled in Parliament and comes a few weeks after the widely-reported incident at Delhi airport in which a passenger was allegedly thrashed by ground staff of IndiGo. The report said 6,000 complaints had been received from passengers complaining about their flight experience through the “Air Sewa” application of the Government. The Parliamentary Committee noted, “The Committee noted that recently there were many incidents of manhandling, discourteous and rude behaviour by airlines staff, both ground staff and cabin crew.
While narrating some of the incidents of misbehaviour in airlines, especially in IndiGo, majority of the members opined that the attitude of airlines staff is very condescending, often uncooperative and on many occasions, downright rude.
“An institution like IndiGo has to develop a consumer friendly approach in dealing with their passengers,” the panel said.
The Committee believes that being a leader in market share, Indigo needs to look inward, it added.
