A new video alleging gross negligence and ‘arrogance’ from IndiGo has shaken the internet. The video shared by the former AirAsia CFO Vijay Gopalan indicated that IndiGo failed to update the departure time for the aircraft on the flight announcement board that caused Gopalan to miss his flight.
Former AirAsia CFO Vijay Gopalan has alleged that an IndiGo flight departed without him despite the airport display showing the flight as delayed. Gopalan documented his entire grievance on Instagram and even alleged that the ground staff for the airline lied to him, blamed him and were ‘horribly rude and arrogant’.
What exactly happened?
In his instagram post, Gopalan said that he was scheduled to fly from Tiruchirappalli International Airport to Chennai at 2:55 pm. He claims he arrived at the airport around 1 pm after completing web check-in and headed to the lounge to finish some work.
While waiting, Gopalan claimed that he kept a keen eye on the flight announcement board as his ride to Chennai got repeatedly delayed – first to 3:10 pm, then 3:15 pm, and later 3:25 pm.
“I was looking at the board, it still said security. They hadn’t announced the boarding and therefore, why would I go and wait at the gate?” he said, adding that the lounge where he was sitting was only a “2 minute” walk from the boarding gate.
Gopalan claimed that while waiting he received a call from airline staff at 3:06 asking his whereabouts saying, ‘Where are you? The flight has left.”
Upon hearing this, Gopalan immediately checked the flight announcement board where the status for his flight still showed ‘security’ indicating that the boarding had not yet begun.
“I immediately looked up the board. The flight announcement board still said that the flight was delayed… I said, how can it leave because the boarding has not yet been announced?” he recalled in his social media post.
After having that conversation with airline staff, he clicked a picture of the airport display board and then rushed to the boarding gate.
Upon reaching the boarding gate, Gopalan was confronted by the airline staff who told him they had announced his name several times at the time of boarding but since he failed to show up on time, the flight left without him.
As per Gopalan when he confronted the ground staff with evidence (the picture he took of the airport display that showed his flight as delayed) the ground staff responded by saying that he should have reached the boarding gate at least 40 minutes prior to the departure time printed on his boarding pass.
“So the flight left us. It just left without me. And the ground staff were super rude,” he said, claiming one staff member remarked, “Just because you wanted to eat good food, you cannot delay our flight, so we left it without you.”
‘Rs 3000 reschedulement fee’
In a follow-up video, Gopalan said that when he took the matter up the chain, a senior airline representative told him that frequent flyers like himself should know gates close 25 minutes before departure.
“I don’t even know when the departure is going to happen… you moved the flight from 2:55 to 3:10, 3:15, 3:25,” Gopalan argued back, maintaining that the display had not been properly updated and led him to assume there would be a further delay.
He further alleged that he was asked to pay a “minimal charge” of ₹3,000 to be rescheduled, which was later reduced to ₹1,800 by an airport manager.
Gopalan said he, a colleague, and another passenger who had been waiting in the lounge were eventually moved to a later flight, causing him to miss a conference in Chennai.
Sharing a video of his interaction with ground staff, he wrote, “There was ZERO intent to listen to my side of the story and more importantly , deflect the blame to me when they knew they were at fault. I was told I was careless. I was told I sat in some other place. I was told I missed the flight because I wanted good food… None of this is true.”
“I am not angry. I am plain disappointed. If this is not arrogance what is ? Why blame passengers when the mistake is on your part ? Your own guys lied to me saying the gate numbers printed on the boarding pass when it is not. When asked, the blame was deflected to me,” Gopalan captioned the last of this three part posts series on the incident.