Lack of clear communication from IndiGo frays stranded passengers

Bhubaneswar: Fliers of cancelled flights on Sunday realised that the IndiGo ground staff at Biju Patnaik International Airport were equally clueless as they were about the four-day-long stalemate in operations.Furious passengers vent fury at the airline’s top functionaries, indicating that it was futile to spend energy fighting with ground personnel, who parrot the same reply. “Their (staff manning counters) politeness is pinching now as we are not getting any clear reply. What shall we do with their polished behaviour? When passengers started trickling in, we thought the situation would normalising but that was not to be, considering Sunday’s chaos outside the terminal,” said Bikram Behera, a flier of a cancelled flight.As the suffering of fliers of cancelled flights continued for the fourth consecutive day here, airport officials maintained a calm and composed demeanour so that the terminal, both inside and outside, remained undisturbed even as passengers’ tempers rose. People were seen either heading straight to the railway station or to hotels without waiting much for the delayed flights to become operational.Mukesh Kumar from Rajasthan said they were stuck at BPIA trying to reach Udaipur via Bengaluru.

“Our flight was rescheduled thrice, forcing us to shuttle between the airport and hotel, unnecessarily raising hotel bills. In fact, there is no one to heed you. It looks like a mirage when you reach the airport hoping to get a positive signal from the airline. I think it is a strategy on the part of the airline’s top functionaries to minimise interaction with the passengers and their relatives,” a frustrated Mukesh told TOI.The experience of K Shruti was even more appalling as she had been struggling for 18 hours to get her luggage at Hyderabad airport after her onward flight to Goa was cancelled. She returned to Bhubaneswar only to be doubly harassed, as she was not able to retrieve her luggage at BPIA as well for well past 24 hours. “The airline is asking me to check the luggage from departure. This is complete madness,” she narrated.