There was a time when flying Indigo, was a delight! The gleaming new aircraft, the squeaky clean interiors, the pretty hostesses in their cute uniforms, and the little cart they wheeled through the craft, from which you took great pleasure in buying a ‘Jungli Sandwich’.
How revolutionary and different from the ‘budda’ airlines with their even ‘buddier’ hostesses, like Air India and Jet of the time!
And the best part was that the tickets were so, so cheap!
The airline functioned like a well-oiled sewing machine, Smiling staff checked you in and glossed over the few extra kgs you were carrying in your multiple check-in bags. The flights always were on time, or ‘Indigo National Time’ as they liked to boast.
They even got the best parking bays and Aero bridges, and soon the rumour mills suggested it was because the big G’s were the benami owners!
Then things started going downhill, slowly at first and rapidly later.
It started with the annoying announcement welcoming “Ladies and gentlemen, Boys and Girls “… sounded so contrived!
Then they limited your check-in to just one bag and later restricted even that to only 15 kgs. The smiling check-in girls, now became aggressive and stern, fighting with all to pay up for even the slightest of extra weight.
Then the snack cart was targeted, now you had to pre-book your Jungli sandwich or whatever on the App or you were not served! Later they made buying a snack compulsory to buying a beverage, In a move to squeeze a few extra bucks out of you.
And the squeezing didn’t stop. You now were made to pay extra for everything. XL seats, Window seats etc, I wonder if in a crisis situation, the oxygen masks were to drop down, would the hostesses go around asking passengers if they would like to buy access to one!
As they also squeezed out most of the competition, even the cheap tickets skyrocketed to astronomical levels, making it a low-cost carrier with ridiculously high-cost fares.
Today they no longer talk of’ Indigo National Time’, their flights are often late and often cancelled. The complacency and arrogance of a near monopolist enterprise has set in…Even the hostesses look jaded and sullen!
So at the end of each flight, when one of them announces “Thank you for flying Indigo, See you next time“,
You wish you didn’t have to!
(# BOBE)
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