Ground chaos, thin staffing leave IndiGo flyers frustrated at Mumbai airport

Passengers at Mumbai's airport face long queues and delayed services due to IndiGo's operational issues, raising concerns over missed flights.

MUMBAI: Long queues at check-in counters, a shortage of ground staff, delayed assistance and anxious passengers, scenes like these have become increasingly common at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in recent days.

Ground chaos, thin staffing leave IndiGo flyers frustrated at Mumbai airport

After a spate of flight cancellations in December, IndiGo appears to be grappling with fresh operational challenges at Mumbai airport, particularly on the ground, triggering widespread passenger inconvenience.

Since the weekend, flyers travelling to and from Mumbai have complained of unusually slow services, long wait times and a lack of airline staff to address concerns. Several passengers said the situation has left them worried about missing flights, with little clarity or assistance available at critical points such as check-in and boarding.

On Wednesday afternoon, Mumbai-based passenger Kunal Purohit, who was flying out of the city, encountered unusually long queues at IndiGo’s check-in counters. “I thought of queuing up to check in, but the line was so long that I would have missed my flight,” he said. Purohit then attempted to use the self-bag drop facility, but that too failed despite multiple tries.

Another passenger, Ananya Sharan, described delays after landing in Mumbai from New Delhi on Sunday night. Posting on X, she said passengers had to wait nearly 20 minutes for ground staff assistance to disembark the aircraft, followed by an additional 15-minute delay due to a shortage of buses to the terminal. “Had quite a messy experience with IndiGo at the Mumbai airport,” she wrote.

Hindustan Times reached out to IndiGo seeking clarity on the reported ground-handling issues at CSMIA, but did not receive a response till the time of going to press.

The latest complaints come close on the heels of a major disruption last month, when IndiGo cancelled around 4,500 flights starting December 2. The cancellations, triggered by the enforcement of stricter pilot duty and rest norms, left thousands of passengers stranded across airports and unsure whether scheduled flights would operate.

Under the revised rules, pilots are required to take longer rest breaks and face tighter limits on night flying hours, leading to significant schedule disruptions. During the 10-day crisis, airfares on competing airlines surged sharply, in some cases exceeding the cost of certain international routes, further compounding passenger distress.