After finishing her 8-day independent trip around India, Mai Linh will fly back to Ho Chi Minh City on the last day. She and her group booked tickets with IndiGo Airlines, departing from Delhi, transiting for 11 hours in Kolkata and then arriving at Tan Son Nhat airport.
"I thought the return flight would be as smooth as the departure flight. But there was one thing that made me never want to use IndiGo Airlines again," Mai Linh told Travellive.
She booked a flight at 3:20 PM, so she arrived 3 hours early. Mai Linh and her group arrived at the airport at 12 PM. However, they had to wait nearly an hour to check in because the check-in staff was not serious and focused on their work. While checking in passengers, this person kept chatting and joking with his colleagues.
"Honestly, looking at his working style, I felt like I was watching a slow motion scene in the movie Child Bride," Mai Linh commented.
Crowded airport in Delhi.
Not only that, the airline staff also did not have a clear understanding of Covid-19 information for passengers flying from India to Vietnam. When Mai Linh questioned why he was working so slowly, this person replied that the staff was allowed to process documents for 15 minutes for a passenger. This meant that Mai Linh’s group of 5 people had to wait 75 minutes to complete check-in procedures, which only took a few minutes for other airlines.
Mai Linh then went through a long queue to go through customs, and it was almost 3pm before she reached the gate. However, the next flight changed gates, causing her group to spend more than ten minutes traveling. Mai Linh and her companions could not catch the IndiGo Airlines flight to Ho Chi Minh City.
"At that moment, we ran to the customer service counter of this company to ask for help. However, we only received more disappointment," Mai Linh recounted.
She asked the airline staff if they could get them on the next flight. Mai Linh responded with a nonchalant remark that there was “not enough time to check in.” Meanwhile, the next flight was not due until 5:30 p.m. Mai Linh and her friend still had plenty of time for the airline to book tickets, check in, and clear security. IndiGo Airlines promised to refund her.
However, the airline staff kept pushing the issue to each other, and no one was willing to resolve it. After waiting for 3 hours without a satisfactory solution, Mai Linh and her group were forced to stay in Delhi for another day and then find another airline to return to Ho Chi Minh City.
IndiGo Airlines is India's largest low-cost carrier, flying to more than 35 destinations within India, as well as five international destinations in Nepal, Oman, Singapore, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. The airline, founded in 2006, has its main hubs at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi and Visakhapatnam International Airport in Andhra Pradesh.
Mai Linh and her group on an 8-day journey in India.
IndiGo Airlines has received many complaints about its poor customer service. According to BBC, Nandan Kumar, a software engineer, contacted the airline to ask for help in finding his lost luggage. When the airline refused to help, he took advantage of a bug in the system and found the information himself.
Although he got his luggage back, Kumar said the data on IndiGo's system should have been encrypted and accessible to anyone. "It's easy to get the passenger identification number (PNR) and passenger name because many people like to share their boarding passes. Anyone can see the luggage, take a picture and use it to get personal information," Kumar said.
