‘Truly appalling’: Pooja Hegde on IndiGo staffer’s rude behavior with entourage, costume designer  

Actor Pooja Hedge, who was last seen in the Thalapathy Vijay-starrer action flick Beast, took to Twitter to share her not-so pleasant experience with the budget carrier IndiGo. She said that a staff member misbehaved with her team on their flight from Mumbai. Hedge further claimed that the staffer was arrogant, ignorant and used threatening tone for no rhyme or reason.

Hedge wrote, “Extremely sad with how rude IndiGo staff member, by the name of Vipul Nakashe, behaved with us today on our flight from Mumbai. Absolutely arrogant, ignorant and threatening tone used with us for no reason. Normally don’t tweet about these issues, but this was truly appalling.”

Soon after this tweet became viral, the airline replied to the actor. IndiGo said in a now-deleted tweet, "Thank you for taking the time to speak with us, Ms Hegde. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused to you and would like to assure you that we are certainly looking into this matter to ensure that there are no recurrences."

Hedge, who made her Bollywood debut opposite Hritik Roshan with the film Mohenjo Daro, accepted the airline’s apology and said that they should apologise to her costume designer and then herself. She added everybody deserves to be treated with respect regardless of where they come from.

She further added, “You cannot claim that a purse counts as hand luggage and not allow an actual carryon bag. More so, for no valid reason, you cannot threaten to deplane someone to show power. The point of this tweet was to hope that there is no abuse of power and all people are treated equally and kindly.”

This incident comes almost a month after the airline denied a specially-abled boy permission to board the Ranchi-Hyderabad flight as he was in panic. Soon after this, parents also decided not to board the plane. The instance took place at Ranchi Airport.

After the incident, CEO Ronojoy Dutta expressed regret over the incident and offered to buy an electric wheel chair for the child. Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia had said that no person should have to go through this and he himself was investigating this incident.

Days later, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on the airline due to the incident. The DGCA also said earlier this month that IndiGo should enhance staff training in terms of sensitivity.