‘Success turned to arrogance, empathy vanished’: Suburban Diagnostics MD says trust on IndiGo is broken

It was not only about the sky-rocketing ticket prices, or even the massive disruption, but the missing empathy that has left a bad taste in the mouths of tens of thousands of passengers who were left stranded across airports after IndiGo’s mass flight cancellations. One of them, Dr Sanjay Arora, MD & Founder of Suburban Diagnostics, took to social media to talk about his experience.

In a Facebook post, Dr Arora said his Rs 8,000 ticket went up to become a Rs 36,000 ticket. “I still would've forgiven it....if empathy hadn't gone missing,” he said.

Dr Arora added that the crisis was not the result of a week of mismanagement but began the day “empathy left (the) leadership and quietly vanished from the organisation”. He said it began the day IndiGo assumed that the rules did not apply to them. 

IndiGo was the obvious choice for many passengers over the years but the recent episode has altered that perspective, he said. Dr Arora was flying from Mumbai to Delhi on a 4pm flight. The flight was initially delayed, then the gate changed but there was no alert about the same.

When passengers asked the staff they were told that there’s “someone” to inform them of the changes. They eventually boarded at 6 pm. 

Dr Arora said that a 70-year-old gentleman seated in the next row asked the crew if he could have a cup of coffee, but was told that pre-booked meals take priority. They also told him that they accept only credit cards and not debit cards.

“Meanwhile, they stood giggling among themselves, completely detached from what passengers were experiencing. At 33,000 feet, when leadership cannot supervise you, your true culture shows. And what showed that day was indifference. Somewhere along the way, your success turned to arrogance, and empathy vanished,” said Dr Arora.

He called the fiasco a “design failure” because of its “lean staffing, tight schedules, zero buffers and manipulation of rules”. “It worked beautifully until reality arrived in the form of new DGCA rules, crew shortages, and cascading delays. You didn't collapse because you were careless. You collapsed because you were over-optimised and under-resilient,” he added.

Dr Arora added that the IndiGo fiasco is what happens when a company takes customers for granted. 

“For the first time in years, I'm actively checking other airlines before choosing Indigo. You may not care. But passengers do,” he added.

Meanwhile, IndiGo has announced that it will offer travel vouchers worth Rs 10,000 to each passenger whose flights were cancelled or delayed for a long time between December 3 and 5. These vouchers can be used for flights within the next 12 months, it said. The airline stated that this compensation is in addition to the existing government guidelines. According to these guidelines, IndiGo will provide compensation ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 depending on the block time of the flight for customers whose flights were cancelled within 24 hours of the scheduled departure time.