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Wonderla boss blames cyclone for opening chaos in Chennai, X says ‘Please refund the ticket money’
Wonderla Managing Director Arun Chittilappilly's tweet has prompted people to share varied reactions.
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The recently inaugurated Wonderla in Chennai received severe backlash after several visitors complained that rides stopped or stalled in mid-air. Addressing that, Arun Chittilappilly, Managing Director and Executive Chairman of the establishment, shared a post. However, his tweet further fueled the outrage on social media.
“Thank you Chennai for that overwhelming response on our first day! We had almost 2000 visitors yesterday!” Chittilappilly tweeted, adding, “We did experience a lot of power outages due to the cyclone and sorry that caused delays for our guests.”
He continued, “But I can assure you that our rides were safe and we will further strengthen our processes to reduce such delays. If you had issues pls reach out to our page @Wonder_La and we will make it right. Thanks again for the love!”
He claimed that some videos from the day shared which surfaced on social media are taken out of context, assuring that the park is safe to visit.
Social media, however, wasn’t convinced. Many argued that the company has been operating for years and should have been equipped to handle such issues. Others wondered why it was inaugurated in such a rush amid Cyclone Ditwah.
An individual wrote, “You’ve been in this business for 25 years, so this should not have happened. Safety isn’t optional. Issues must be prevented, especially in a job where safety comes first.” Another added, “First impressions are the best impressions. You should have done enough trial runs and opened it for the public.”
A third commented, “Please refund the ticket money to those 2000 visitors, that's the first step.” A fourth expressed, “Going ahead with the launch with a half-finished site, amidst a cyclone, was a pathetic idea. Overwhelming. Lol.”
Who is Arun Chittilappilly?
According to his LinkedIn, he joined Wonderla as an executive director in 2003. After working in the role for three years, he was promoted to managing director, a position he has held for the past 17 years. He joined the board of directors earlier this year.
Wonderla Holidays Limited full statement:
In a statement to HT.com Wonderla Holidays Limited said, “Wonderla Chennai welcomed nearly 2,000 guests on its opening day despite the weather conditions. Regional power fluctuations on December 2nd caused brief pauses in a few rides while the system switched to backup power. These momentary holds were part of standard safety protocol during power stabilisation. Operations continued normally thereafter. We regret the longer wait times and inconvenience caused to some guests.”
The statement continued, “We want to reiterate that there were no technical or safety-related issues with any ride. The pauses were solely due to external power instability. Wonderla follows global safety standards, rigorous daily inspections and preventive maintenance, the same protocols that have enabled smooth, all-season operations, including heavy rains, across all our parks for 25 years, serving over 48 million guests safely. We are aware of some inaccurate information circulating online and would like to clarify that operations remained under control throughout. The park remains fully operational and we continue to serve our guests without any interruptions. As a precaution for the current weather conditions, the park is now operating solely on our own power systems to ensure uninterrupted functioning.”
