Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu told Parliament on Monday that the government would take “strict” action over the IndiGo crisis and “set an example” for the wider aviation sector. He, however, did not spell out what measures were being considered.
IndiGo, operated by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, told the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday evening — in its response to a showcause notice — that it was “realistically not possible to pinpoint the exact cause” of the operational meltdown at this stage, given the carrier’s “complexity and vast scale of operations”. The airline said the crisis resulted from a “compounding effect of multiple factors” that came together in an “unfortunate and unforeseeable confluence”.
Meanwhile, IndiGo is facing mounting passenger anger as delays in tracing and delivering thousands of stranded bags compound last week’s massive flight disruptions. Social media has been inundated with images of luggage stacked across major airports, highlighting the scale of the fallout from one of the worst operational crises in Indian aviation.
The carrier, which commands 65 percent of the domestic market, has apologised after cancelling more than 2,000 flights following its failure to adequately prepare for tighter pilot rest regulations, which triggered widespread crew shortages. The cancellations derailed travel, holiday and wedding plans for tens of thousands of people.
However, the chaos has now extended beyond flight schedules. A wave of last-minute cancellations and complex rerouting through multiple connections has left thousands of bags misplaced — including items as critical as passports, house keys and essential medicines.
Photos circulating on X show security-tagged baggage heaped inside terminals at the airports in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, with exasperated travellers pleading for assistance from IndiGo’s online support teams. One widely shared image from the Times of India carried the caption: “Delhi left holding the bag”, depicting hundreds of suitcases piled in an area normally reserved for passenger seating.
The central government said in a statement on Sunday that it had directed IndiGo to trace and deliver all separated baggage within 48 hours.
Vikash Bajpai, 47, said he and his 72-year-old mother had been waiting four days for their bags, which went missing during their return from a wedding in Kanpur. Their long journey home included an unplanned overnight stay in a New Delhi hotel, a string of connecting flights to Mumbai, and finally a taxi to Pune — only to find their luggage still missing.
“I was given a number to call, but nobody answers the phone. The bags have expensive wedding clothes, shoes and my mother’s medication,” Bajpai told Reuters, estimating the contents at around 90,000 rupees.
A senior IndiGo executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said teams were working “round the clock” to clear the backlog and reunite passengers with their belongings.
