Not 55 mins, this Bombay to Goa flight took 200 mins

After being made to wait in the hot and stuffy aircraft for 75 minutes, passengers were shifted to two airport buses

It's time that one of India's largest airlines takes a hard look at the services it provides to its customers. Passengers travelling by an Indigo Bombay-Goa flight last Wednesday were in for a rude shock when they were made to wait for more than 2 hours for a 55-minute flight. For an hour they had to sit inside the aircraft without any air-conditioning and then made to wait in two airport buses while engineers fixed the technical glitch.

Indigo flight number 6E 179 was scheduled to depart at 11:20 am, but finally took off around 1:48 pm. Mark Austin, a 53-year-old British journalist currently working in Japan, who was aboard the flight, said the departure time was first changed from 11:20 am to 11:50 am on the flight information display board near the boarding gate. However, passengers started boarding the aircraft around noon.

The goodies that were handed out to passengers

"We were stuck on board the aircraft for about 75 minutes. It was getting really hot and uncomfortable inside. After waiting in the aircraft for about 20 minutes, the Captain said there was a technical issue and that he was trying to sort it out," said Austin.

According to him, after about 75 minutes, an engineer arrived to check the problem. "There was a bit of an argument between him and the Captain, but at the end the engineer took full responsibility," he added. The Captain then apologised, and the passengers were taken back to the boarding gate.

The Rs 500 voucher that Indigo sent the next day

The passengers were then made to board two airport buses, which had the ACs on, around 1:15 pm, where they had to wait for another 40 minutes while engineers fixed the aircraft's glitch. "We finally got back on the plane around 1:50 pm and departed just before 2 pm," said Austin.

He added, "When we finally got on to the aircraft, the on-board crew gave us some goodies, which were primarily junk food." The following day Indigo even sent the passengers R500 compensation vouchers through email.

"I was supposed to land in Goa around 12:30 pm and my home is just an hour from the airport, so had I landed on time, I could've spent an afternoon at the beach. But that didn't happen due to the delay, which was a bit annoying," he added.

Confirming the incident, an Indigo spokesperson said, "The total delay was of 2 hours 28 minutes. The technical glitch that happened cannot be foreseen. But the delay didn't happen only from our end, there was a lot of air congestion as well."

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates