IndiGo's United moment: Why assaulting a paying passenger is all round bad news for India's biggest airline

New Delhi: As the scary assault on a passenger by the ground staff of India’s largest airline by passengers, IndiGo, takes social media by storm, IndiGo would do well to remember what United Airlines’ CEO faced when a similar incident shaved off millions of dollars of wealth from his airline’s scrip in April this year. A video of the United crew dragging a passenger out from an overbooked flight went viral in April. The passenger allegedly refused to be offloaded from the flight that was already at least two hours behind schedule. He sustained injuries and the incident brought in unprecedented criticism for United. The situation was made worse by an allegedly “weak” apology by United’s CEO which made a mention of “re-accommodation” of the affected passenger. Seen to be not apology enough, the CEO’s endeavour fuelled a steep decline in the airline’s shares on the US bourses almost immediately. Hours after the scrip slid, he had to issue another, detailed apology as the airline continued to face investors’ ire. Investors apart, the airline suffered untold humiliation at the hands of passengers on social media. [caption id=“attachment_4199221” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters.[/caption] When one books a ticket to fly, one seldom imagines bodily harm at the hands of airline employees. Sure, there are rogue passengers, those who try to open emergency doors mid-flight, some who misbehave with the flight attendants after drinking too much or sometimes members of parliament who slap airline staff due to a misplaced sense of entitlement. But even in these cases, where there is clear obstruction to flight operations and safety of all on board, there should be no cause for physical assault by the airline staff. Under any circumstances. Whether IndiGo, which is also a scrip listed on the Indian stock exchanges, faces similar investor ire remains to be seen. But the airline has already seen loss of face and faith among its customers, with hashtags such as #indigoons and #boycottindigo trending on social media since last evening. This piece in Times of India says IndiGo ground staff manhandled and dragged a passenger at Delhi Airport on 15 October after a tiff. It also says that an airline employee, Montu Kalra, who acted as a whistleblower, tried to intervene and shot a video of this high-handedness, was sacked by the airline. It remains unclear if only the whistleblower was sacked or whether perpetrators were also shown the door. “This drama unfolded on 15 October when 6E 487 flew into Delhi from Chennai. After alighting from the Airbus A-320, a passenger Rajiv Katiyal got into an argument with some ground staffers over some issue and he allegedly abused them. What sparked this argument has not been ascertained yet. Two to three IndiGo ground staffers stopped Katiyal from boarding the bus which was taking passengers to the terminal. They then manhandled him and dragged him on the tarmac for over a minute.”

The TOI piece further said on Tuesday when Kalra’s video became public, Minister of State for Aviation Jayant Sinha sought a detailed report on this issue. He said once the passenger lodges a criminal complaint (FIR) against the IndiGo employees who beat him up, they will lose their security clearance for airport passes and not be able to go there for their job. Effectively, the guilty employees of IndiGo will not be able to work in the aviation industry. A few days back, alleged misbehavior of IndiGo’s crew came to light in another incident, when shuttler P V Sindhu took to twitter to complain. In a tweet, IndiGo said over the latest incident “we truly apologise for the treatment shown to Mr Rajeev Katyal by one of our employees. At IndiGo, dignity of our passengers and staff is of utmost importance. Any act that compromises the dignity of either is of a serious concern to us. Under the code of conduct violation, this incident was investigated and stern action was taken against the staff”. Well, IndiGo could have made the incident public and issued an apology earlier – after all, the incident happened almost a month back. What was the need to await public shaming through a video? Is a certain arrogance, perhaps because of being the single largest domestic airline, creeping in? Remember, for months now, IndiGo has close to 40 percent share of the domestic aviation market – which means four in 10 domestic flyers choose to fly with this airline. This numero uno position could be threatened unless IndiGo takes a lesson from this despicable incident and trains its staff afresh in public dealing. The airline industry is afterall, all about perceptions. This twitter user posted a picture captioned “we beat our customers, not competitors”

Yuva Sena’s leader Aditya Thackeray tweeted that IndiGo airlines should be put under a ‘No fly ban”

A no fly ban is a must on this airline till these guys are arrested with an attempt to murder #BoycottIndigo https://t.co/3i8lxo03iL

— Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) November 7, 2017

Remember, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad had been barred from domestic flying briefly after he assaulted crew of an airline. But an apology later, he was back in the skies.

#boycottindigo. I will never fly again in this airline. Boycott IndiGo who the hell are you to touch a passenger.

— Sivasamy (@Sivasam22621771) November 7, 2017

More from Business

Hyundai India’s Rs 27,870 crore IPO oversubscribed by 2.28X, largely driven by institutional investors How Indian fintech startups are driving Malaysia’s UPI-like digital payments revolution

Meanwhile, here’s another suggestion, though this one is for the aviation authorities. India now has a no-fly list, a series of names of people who indulge in shameful behavior while in the air and can therefore be barred from flying by individual airlines. As of now, this no-fly list applies to passengers; airline staff and co-passengers are presumed to be the victims. But after the shocking physical assault by IndiGo’s ground staff has come to light, would it not be appropriate to demand that the perpetrators of this shameful act also find a place in the no-fly list? Of course, the perpetrators (and not the whistleblower) should also be immediately sacked by IndiGo and blacklisted, so that they are unable to secure a job in the airline industry ever again.