IndiGo Takes The Biggest Hit In The Annual Fog Meltdown Of Air Travel

Welcome to the annual fog meltdown of Indian air travel. In the 2024 edition, only two major airline groups are left in the country: IndiGo, and Air India and its associates. And IndiGo is getting much more flak on social media than the others this year.

Fog is an annual phenomenon that affects Delhi and other airports up north, every winter. It turns up without much advance notice and throws air travel out of gear, the well-oiled machinery it usually is. And on Jan. 14, the north Indian belt woke up to extreme fog and low visibility.

Per FlightRadar24, over 500 flights were delayed, 87 departures were cancelled at Delhi Airport, and over 400 flights were delayed for arrival in Delhi. Aircraft that landed in Delhi waited for hours to get a gate. And aircraft ready for departure had people sitting inside the plane for hours. 

As has been widely circulated, Delhi Airport’s Runway 28/10 has been shut for maintenance since September 2023. While it was supposed to be back online before the fog season, GMR Airports has postponed the reopening of 28/10 at least three times now.

While Delhi Airport has four runways, 28/10 was their primary CAT-IIIB-compliant runway. CAT-IIIB is a navigation system where aircraft can land even with visibility as low as 50 metres. 28/10 gets less fog (hence higher visibility) than the other CAT-IIIB runway at 29L/11R. However, its non-availability has meant a major cut in the number of aircraft that can land in Delhi on a low-visibility morning, causing subsequent flight delays.

This affects IndiGo, Air India and its associate airlines because Delhi is the primary hub for both carriers, and any delay caused in Delhi would mean a subsequent delay at other airports for other flights as well (due to aircraft delay). 

Not only that, but the large number of grounded IndiGo and Go First aircraft at Delhi airport has reduced parking bays for day-to-day operations.

If there is adverse weather every year, there should also be a plan of action to mitigate the impact. I’ve seen dense fog impact operations in Delhi since 2008-09 at least, but airlines respond as if they have no clue how to deal with it. And so does everyone else.

In 2016, then Minister of Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati informed about an elaborate plan laid out by DGCA for low-visibility operations. Unfortunately, no such plan was publicised in 2024 until the fog hit.

And when it did, there were no norms, just Standard Operating Procedures that were prescribed. DGCA has advised airlines to cancel flights where they think flights would be anticipated to be delayed for more than three hours. DGCA also said that airlines should sensitise their staff and inform passengers in real-time through the website and SMS/Email with the customers.

IndiGo operates 6/10 flights in India, and with the scale of their operations, there are going to be days when all goes wrong. On Jan. 14, only 21% of IndiGo’s flights operated on time, per data filed by the airline. However, the airline forgot to bring empathy to the customers that day.

IndiGo is a cut-and-dry operation. You get what you pay for. The airline does not train its crew to talk much to the passengers, so customer interaction is limited to selling them a sandwich and telling them to belt up when customers jump off their seats on landing.

On a normal day, this model works. But on a day like January 14, this model broke. Passengers were on aircraft for over ten hours in some cases, and they had no clue about when they would fly out. The airline gave them no answers either. And then, on 6E2175 between Delhi and Goa, one passenger snapped and slapped a pilot.

On the return flight, 6E2195, which diverted from Goa to Delhi to land in Mumbai, passengers were seen sitting on the tarmac. This is an aviation security personnel’s nightmare that came true, but the airline has yet to clarify why this happened. However, a statement by MIAL, the airport operator, states that the passengers refused to go to the terminal so they were seated on the tarmac under the watchful eye of CISF’s Quick Response Team.

One thing that comes to light, however, is the ignorance of the passengers and the unwillingness of the airlines’ staff to engage with them. Most Indian passengers are first-time flyers, and they dip into their pockets for a plane ticket, thinking of it as a luxury or a necessity due to some exigency. They don't know what to do when they find themselves sitting on a plane for hours at length with the door closed (a regulatory requirement to enable quick departure when things improve). And they don’t care that aviation works in the boundary of rules around rest and operational hours, and crew could time out just sitting there waiting to take off.

Unfortunately for airlines, they now operate under the watchful eyes of 24-hour television and in an era where everyone has a phone and a social media account. So, it does not take days for such incidents to be discovered, but rather minutes. For IndiGo, this meant that the perception around them also dwindled around this time.

And the airline is to be blamed as well. It does not try to communicate with the guests on board. Pilots I’ve talked to believe they have nothing new to add, so they don’t frequently make announcements. However, the airline’s operations centre also does not push updates to customers via the website or their phones, just telling them that “operational reasons” are causing a delay, challenging their intelligence. Frequent updates might help.

Opening their cheque books might help improve perception as well. While IndiGo knows that most people who say they won’t fly IndiGo again would do it in a jiffy provided it aligns with their schedules, the airline does not provide for customers in these troubled times. For instance, they hand out a munchies bag for delayed flights when the doors are open, but what about the delay when the plane has closed doors and is waiting for permission to depart for hours? IndiGo can empty the carts with ready-to-eat food, but they don’t.

I believe that IndiGo is ripe for reinvention. As India’s largest airline, they need to start behaving more responsibly for some of these factors beyond their control, just by “listening” to their customers.

Ajay Awtaney writes about aviation and passenger experience at LiveFromALounge.com and Tweets at @LiveFromALounge.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of NDTV Profit or its editorial team.