When it comes to tomfoolery, there are far too many complaints that happen in the aviation world on a day-to-day basis, and this website steers clear of covering most of them. As usual, it is either the passengers’ lack of understanding of the rules or the high-handedness of the airline concerned. However, one case got my attention last night and went deep into the land of, do not do this on a plane.

Delhi suffers from dense fog, causing delays on January 14, 2024

Oh well. As usual, fog descended on Delhi airport every winter, throwing operations into chaos. What has been exceedingly terrible this year has been that Delhi Airport shut down their Runway 28/10, their “workhorse”, and their main CATIIIB-enabled runway for repairs after they opened the fourth runway at the airport. This Runway was supposed to be back online in December 2023 but is seeing rolling delays in its reactivation, with a new date about its opening being posted ever so often. The closure is valid through January 17, 2024, at 3 PM IST as of the last published notification.

Anyhow, with India’s most significant hub being Delhi and the primary base of all major airlines in India, fog in Delhi does bring things to a standstill and cause network-wide delays. However, the fog cover on January 12 and 13 was significant and caused many rolling delays. People were seated on the plane but had nowhere to go. This is from a point of view of preparedness to take off. Once on a plane, and doors close (which means all the passengers are on board and bags are in the cargo hold), and the plane has left the gate/bay, the airline awaits Air Traffic Controllers’ instructions to be able to take off.

On such days, many planes (and many passengers inside) are left waiting. Even when the fog lifts, there are long queues, and you could be something like number 20 for take-off, which is 40-50 minutes away. Non-frequent-flyers don’t understand this, and airlines don’t communicate well.

Unfortunately, yesterday, one passenger decided to vent his anger on the pilot, rather than on social media, for this inordinate delay. 6E2175, which operates between Delhi and Goa, had a passenger seated at the back (in 28F) come charging to the front and hit the first officer, who was using the PA system to make an announcement.

This was an inordinately delayed flight, supposed to take off at 7:40 AM, and eventually took off at 5:33 PM, partly due to the guest at hand. The airline, of course, wrote him up and handed him over to law enforcement.

The passenger was declared “Unruly” and will now face a committee of IndiGo, where they will consider if he needs to be put up on the no-fly list or not. He most probably will, except for how long is unknown.

What also remains unexplained is why the pilot was using the PA system and not talking to the passenger from the cockpit behind a secured door. It has recently been seen with a lot of IndiGo pilots that they come on the PA system and want to be seen rather than do their job from their cockpit. If this is a management diktat or their own free will, I don’t know.

What could the airline have done better?

While some pilots on my Twitter timeline tend to disagree with me, I sense the problem is both ways. I feel the airlines need to communicate more with the passengers than usual. I recently wrote about my experience waiting for take-off on Air India Express, which was a good instance. But most airlines do not talk to the passengers. On a recent flight with Air India between Delhi and Pune, the passengers were waiting inside for over 2 hours. The plane went mechanical, and so, of course, it had to be repaired before take off. But the pilot would come and mumble sometimes, and the crew had no information.

Bottomline

An angry passenger, Sahil Kataria, on board IndiGo’s 6E 2175, operating between Delhi and Goa (on January 14, 2024), physically assaulted the first officer, Anup Kumar. The airline offloaded him, handing him over to law enforcement at Delhi Airport. IndiGo will now work on putting him on a no-fly list as well.

What do you think of the incident, and how could the airline have handled it better?

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