IndiGo offers travel vouchers to severely impacted passengers

Limping back to normalcy, IndiGo on Thursday offered travel vouchers worth Rs10,000 to customers who were severely impacted during the flight disruption earlier this month.

The airline "regrettably acknowledged” that several people travelling between December 3 and 5 were stranded for many hours at major airports nationwide. The crisis caused thousands of cancellations and delays, keeping passengers in long queues.

"We will offer travel vouchers worth Rs 10,000 to such severely impacted customers. These travel vouchers can be used for any future IndiGo journey for the next 12 months,” an IndiGo spokesperson said in a statement.

A staff member of IndiGo work to tag stranded bags and belongings of IndiGo passengers following large-scale flight disruptions in New Delhi. Reuters

The compensation is in addition to the commitment under the existing government guidelines, as per which, IndiGo will provide compensation of Rs5,000 to Rs 10,000, depending on the block time of the flight, to those customers whose flights were cancelled within 24 hours of departure time.

IndiGo also noted that "all necessary refunds for cancelled flights have been initiated”, including bookings through a travel partner platform.

The airline said that it is "committed" to restoring a "safe, smooth, and reliable” experience.

A passenger waits outside the IndiGo Airlines kiosk at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru. AFP

Earlier in the day, IndiGo Chairman Vikram Singh Mehta said that the airline’s Board will bring in external technical experts to work with the management and identify the root causes behind last week’s massive flight disruptions.

He said the experts will help ensure that such large-scale operational failures never happen again.

Meanwhile, the company stated that all destinations in the airline's network have been fully connected since Dec.8, and operations have stabilised since Dec.9.

On Dec.8, it flew more than 1,750 flights with just one same-day cancellation, and on Dec.9, it had over 1,800 flights and zero cancellations. Over 1,900 flights took off on December 10, while just two were cancelled on the same day.

Labourers work atop an under-construction building as an IndiGo Airlines aircraft prepares to land at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru. AFP

On Thursday, IndiGo said it expects "to operate more than 1,950 flights with approximately 300,000 customers.”

Indo-Asian News Service