Indigo Airlines — Indigo service

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Dear Somebody at Indigo,

I am writing this mail to convey my displeasure at the recent experience that I had with your award winning service staff. Considering their ignorant attitude towards my problems, I am quite sure that my cry in this mail will also fall on deaf ears, but nevertheless if you do care, read on.

I had booked an itinerary for my sister and me from Patna to Bengaluru, via Delhi (PNR: P968VC) on flights 6E367 (PAT to DEL) departing from Patna at 1100 hrs and 6E839 (DEL to BLR) departing from Delhi at 1545 hrs, both on Feb 7, 2017.

Here's the first part of the Indigo team's tricks (let's call this part "The Pledge"). While checking in at Patna, we were given two boarding passes each for our flights as expected, but the catch was that our boarding passes for Delhi to Bangalore were those of a flight different from the one I had booked in my itinerary. We did not realise this in Patna. On reaching Delhi we went through security, had lunch and after waiting a while just when we thought it was time we went to the boarding gate, we were surprised that instead of 6E839 the flight number on our passes was 6E481, which was scheduled to depart one and half hour later. After asking around, we were told to talk to Mr. Saurabh Bansal on boarding gate 10B. After initially saying that he wouldn't be able to do anything (something I think the Indigo staff are taught to say on the very first day of training) he checked his system, a state of the art computer driven by alien intelligence and quantum computing and told us that there were no seats available for us on 6E839, the flight that we had booked. Strange, isn't it ? Even IRCTC doesn't make such a mistake. But on asking him, how could they give the seats on our flight to someone else and put us on a different flight without asking, he said that his "system" was showing such and such (something they are probably taught to say on day 2 of training). After a little arguing he told us to wait for sometime. He said that he'd see what he could do(a way of not saying [censored] off right away). After waiting for 10 mins, I went to him again. This time, he checked his system in front of a senior and voila! two seats (that were most likely ours) magically appeared on the flight we'd booked. One of two things had happened, I thought. Either he was trying to [censored] us when we had come to him earlier, when he told us that the flight was full, something he couldn't do now, with his senior looking into the screen, or Indigo's quantum computing driven system had a bug. If it was the latter, I was convinced (being a developer) that the testing team of Indigo's software was to blame, and they should be held fully responsible and accountable for the bug. However, with two seats having magically appeared, he asked us to get our current boarding passes cancelled and get new ones issued from counter D11.

We reached D11, a very slow moving counter dedicated for ticket cancellations and adjustments where every customer takes around 5-10 mins. I wondered if that was the throughput of Indigo's magical "system". Seated there was Ms. Yumibham, who had already called a colleague twice asking him to send a reliever for her, while we waited in line for some mercy. Despite being 5th from the front, it took us 30 mins to reach the counter.

Then came the second part of the trick. Let's call it "The Turn". After we explained our case (again), she checked in her omniscient system, only to tell us to our utter dismay, that there was only one seat on the plane. (I was convinced. There surely was a bug. Damn the testing guys). I told her that it was strange because Mr. Bansal had told us that there were two seats left. She then repeated the first two lessons of her training - Chapter 1"How to say I can't to anything" and Chapter 2 "How to say my system is showing so and so". She went on to say that in her system I wasn't even booked on 6E839. I showed her my ticket and told her that her since my ticket showed otherwise, her system was probably wrong, without realising that by bringing into question her infallible system, I had crossed an imaginary line somewhere. Seeing her expression change, I knew I had said something I shouldn't have. I knew that by questioning her sacrosanct system I had compromised the professional modesty of an Indigo staff. If it were possible she would probably throw me out of a flying Indigo plane. She was clearly disturbed. She kept on repeating chapters 1 and 2 and in the end asked me go to counter F01 and meet Mr. Shashank Nayyar, her manager and the only person who could do anything about my issue.

We reached F01 and spoke to Mr. Nayyar. Mr. Nayyar, in turn looked into the space-time distorting, Indigo system with black holes detecting capabilities and told us the same thing - that there was only one seat available. After his share of chapter 1&2 chanting, he arrived at the final part of the trick, the part after which there is enthusiasm and clapping. You guessed it right, this part is called "The Prestige". When I showed him my ticket, he said, "I don't know how you got this ticket and you will have to contact customer care and ask them why they gave you such a ticket. As for now, since there's only one seat and you are two people, you will have to travel in the flight we have put you in." I was flabbergasted. He wouldn't budge even when we told him that we were assured by Mr. Bansal that there were two seats available, which would be given to us. He wasn't even willing to admit that there had been an error. It was shocking. Just when he thought they had pulled the whole thing off and it was time for clapping and enthusiasm, my sister lost it. She sternly asked Nayyar to call Bansal and ask him how could one of them promise us tickets and cancel our passes and the other not deliver.

After quarrelling with us and speaking with Bansal, Nayyar reluctantly agreed to put us on the flight we had booked. He made it appear as if he had to cancel some other passenger's ticket to make room for the two o[censored]s, another piece of [censored] since the seat beside us in the flight was unoccupied.

I must give the Indigo staff some credit though. I couldn't shake their unwavering faith in their system, even if it meant them questioning a ticket that they themselves had issued. All of them were united in defending it. A great man once said that humans would eventually become slaves of machines in the future. His garlanded photograph should be hung in the Indigo staff training academy. If this is Indigo's award winning service, I really wonder, who gave them the award.

I am quite certain nobody from Indigo is going to read this till here but if you do please make sure things change. A small piece of advice, Chapter 1 & 2 should be changed to "How to say I'm sorry" and "The system could be wrong, let me recheck".

P.S : Sorry for the Prestige analogy. I later realised, that it is lame.