8 In 10 Airline Passengers Experienced ‘Dark Patterns’ In 1 year, Mostly On Indigo: Survey

Last Updated:December 12, 2025, 13:15 IST

Forced action, confirm shaming and bait & switch reported on Indigo, while drip pricing common on Air India, Spicejet and Akasa, finds Local Circles survey

Stranded passengers try to get answers from IndiGo officials. (PTI)

Last week, as Indigo faced major disruption across India, followed by cancellation of over 5000 flights over a week and promised hassle free cancellations and refunds, the dark pattern complaints on LocalCircles and other social media platforms experienced a massive jump.

Consumers reported that they experienced all kinds of charges being deducted when they attempted to cancel a ticket directly or via various travel aggregators.

In one example, a ticket price of INR 39,180 paid by the user who attempted to cancel was being given a refund of INR 1788 despite Indigo promising full return there by classifying it as a Bait & Switch dark pattern.

The Bait here is clearly the full refund promise given to calm the angry passengers followed by switching it to a different outcome which is favorable to the platform. Similarly, tickets were being still sold by Indigo to consumers for flights it knew are not likely to be operational.

The Bait & Switch dark pattern very frequently experienced by 70% consumers in the last 12 months is also used often to manipulate fares where a lower fare is displayed and in the booking process towards the end, it is changed to a higher amount.

64% of consumers surveyed who used airline apps/websites for transacting, be it booking or seat assignment or cancellation and refunds also confirmed experiencing the Forced Action dark pattern where an action against the user’s wishes or consent is forced upon them and is different than promised action.

For example, in the latest disruption when Indigo announced that they were accepting unconditional cancellations and full refunds when users with a flight ticket attempted to cancel, they found that cancellation option was greyed out with they only being given the ability to modify their booking but not cancel it. Airlines, during COVID also deployed this practice where instead of letting consumers cancel their flights, they would force them to opt for a different date in the future.

24% consumers in the survey confirmed experiencing this sometimes but not as frequently. Forced Action is also the number one dark pattern prevalent on online platforms in India.

80% of consumers surveyed who used airline apps/websites to book tickets in the last 12 months say they have frequently experienced hidden charges associated with flight ticket booking that are not presented upfront but only when they are ready to finalise the trip and make the final payment. These charges appear under heads like convenience fee or platform fee. Though Indigo intimates the user upfront, airline apps like Air India, Spicejet and Akasa don’t thereby surprising the user. This dark pattern classified as Drip Pricing is also the second most used dark pattern on online platforms in India.

35% of consumers surveyed who use airline apps/websites say they have very frequently experienced Confirm Shaming dark pattern where a language is used that made them feel guilty, fearful or shamed when declining optional services. 21% of consumers stated that they have experienced it sometimes while 17% said they have never experienced it and 12% said they experienced it rarely.

Other Dark Patterns on airline websites and apps that users confirmed experiencing include False Urgency being experienced very frequently by 56% consumers and Nagging being frequently experienced by 40% consumers.

The need of the hour is for CCPA to study these airline dark patterns in detail and get all the airlines to ensure compliance. The latest Indigo disruption has amplified the usage of dark patterns further and if no action is taken immediately, it will leave many more grieving consumers, with reduced trust in airlines and the regulators.

LocalCircles plans to share the study findings with DGCA and CCPA for their understanding and action.

The study received over 124,000 responses from users of airline services located in 302 districts of India. 67% respondents were men while 33% respondents were women. 46% respondents were from tier 1, 29% from tier 2 and 25% respondents were from tier 3, 4 and rural districts.

The survey was conducted via LocalCircles platform, and all participants were validated citizens who had to be registered with LocalCircles to participate in this survey.

LocalCircles is a Community Social Media platform enables citizens and small businesses to escalate issues for policy and enforcement interventions and enables the Government to make policies that are citizen and small business centric.

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