Amid IndiGo flight crisis, Sonu Sood, Vir Das urge people not to disrespect ground staff

More than 1,000 IndiGo flights have been cancelled over the past four days, and Sonu Sood and Vir Das have reacted to the disruption.

Airports turned chaotic across the country as IndiGo flight cancellations hit major cities including Delhi, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru. Several videos of frustrated passengers lashing out at ground staff have emerged on social media. Amid the frenzy, actors Sonu Sood and Vir Das have appealed to the public, urging them not to take out their anger on the airline’s frontline employees.

Sonu Sood and Vir Das took to social media to ask people not to lose their cool on the ground staff.

Sonu Sood, Vir Das urge kindness

More than 1,000 IndiGo flights have been cancelled over the past four days, with passengers stranded for hours amid a wave of cancellations and delays.

On Saturday, Vir took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to urge the passengers not to take out their frustration on ground staff. He suggested that senior management, rather than frontline employees, should be at the counters to address the concerns of angry travellers.

“The decent thing to do? The entire senior management of Indigo should be made to take shifts at the airport and stand there. From CEOs to VPs and such. The decision makers. Instead of the terrified junior employees with no power, cabin crew, and ground staff, who have been left to deal with the yelling and screaming,” he wrote.

Sonu Sood also turned to social media to share a video message, appealing to passengers to be patient and reminding them that the ground staff is helpless in such situations.

Sharing the video, he wrote, “A delayed flight is frustrating, but remember the faces trying to fix it. Please be nice and humble to the IndiGo staff; they are carrying the weight of cancellations too. Let’s support them."

In the video, Sonu shared, “My family was one of the thousands who had to face delays and long waits at the airport. They had to wait for over 4–5 hours for their flight. I know a lot of meetings were cancelled, and many people could not attend important events… Everyone is hurt and frustrated. But imagine yourself in the place of the ground staff. They are helpless… They only communicate the messages that they receive. So why react to them? It is our responsibility to support them during this tough time and not react because they are helpless.”

Meanwhile, Swanand Kirkire demanded damages, writing, “Sorry is not enough ... pay damages.”

What do we know about IndiGo flight disruptions

IndiGo has been in the midst of an “operational crisis”, as termed by the airline, over the past few days, with well over 1,000 flight cancellations in a single day on Friday.

With the carrier struggling with getting its flights airborne, scenes of chaos unfolded across airports in the country, after cancellations hit major hubs including Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. The airline, India's largest, has attributed the crisis to a “multitude of unforeseen operational challenges”, also citing minor tech glitches, winter schedule changes and the weather.

The airline apologised for the inconvenience to passengers through a post on social media. “While this will not get resolved overnight, we assure you that we will do everything in our capacity to help you in the meantime and to bring our operations back to normal at the earliest,” IndiGo said in the statement. The airline will be giving passengers a “full waiver” on all cancellations and rescheduling requests of bookings between December 5,2025 and December 15, 2025.