In those bitter hours when Indigo, the country's premier airline became "Indi-stop," passengers were unimaginably inconvenienced, but the organisation's
staff, particularly the ground staff and cabin crew and also, pilots, were severely troubled. Not only did they bear the brunt of the passengers' anger - genuine rage, actually - but many employees didn't seem to know "what was going on." They say they were left on a limb. "There were times when the pilots were ready, the cabin crew was ready, the passengers were waiting, but there were no calls... We were not told to do anything. We waited in the plane for three hours and then, eight hours later, we took off," said an Indigo employee. The lines I most heard was, "For six to eight hours, there was no information," or "No one was taking calls. How come the stoppage happened?" Sometimes, "the captain is there, the cabin crew is not there... maybe they haven't been informed." How pilots and cabin crew are in the aircraft, sitting there for hours with passengers there as well, is hard to explain, but employees said this continued to happen, virtually all the time, during the crisis. "And here we are...we have no authority. And no orders are coming. There was this vacuum," one employee said. What is worrying is how the employees see it. In 2024, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) came up with new guidelines, it spoke of more rest for pilots - a period of minimum rest - and this was to be implemented from November. But "we did not prepare for it," is the refrain. What would be needed? More pilots, more planning was necessary. "We did not prepare for it. A lot could have been done using AI." The DGCA guidelines apart, there have been internal problems with the employees unhappy about cost-cutting. The cutting of allowances has been a problem, employees said. And the amount is different for different people. "The organisation failed to accept that changes were necessary. Then, all these things added up. And the bubble burst," one said. Things have returned to normal, there are bitter memories of the loss of goodwill and the inconveniences the employees themselves faced. "During those three-four days, we were the ones left to face the music."
