IndiGo at receiving end of public ire, Aditya Ghosh apologises to Jayant Sinha
, ET Bureau|
Updated: Nov 09, 2017, 12.15 AM IST
MUMBAI: IndiGo continued to be at the receiving end of public ire on Wednesday over its response to the manhandling of a passenger by the airline’s ground staff at Delhi’s airport.
The airline’s late public apology, which came three weeks after the incident, and action to fire an employee who shot a video of the scuffle, didn’t help as angry comments poured into social media, with the hashtag #boycottIndiGo trending on Twitter on Tuesday and Wednesday. The government said it has sought a report on the incident.
Shares of Interglobe Aviation, the airline’s parent, fell 2.29% to end the day at Rs 1,181.75 on the BSE, underperforming the benchmark Sensex that closed 0.46% lower.
The civil aviation ministry has sought a detailed report of the incident, minister of state Jayant Sinha said on Twitter. The minister said he will meet Montu Kalra, the IndiGo staff who shot the video and was later terminated by the airline. He also hoped that the passenger, Rajiv Katyal, would file a police complaint against his assaulters.
The manhandling incident that occurred on October 15 came into public attention on Tuesday, after the video shot by Kalra surfaced in the media.
The video shows Katyal just about to board a shuttle to the Delhi airport's arrival terminal after having deplaned from a flight that came from Chennai. It finds him in a heated altercation with IndiGo's ground staff. Katyal is accused of abusing an employee which he irritably denies. The footage shows the IndiGo staff shoving the passenger to ground and pinning him down there.
In a seven-page letter to the ministry, IndiGo's president, Aditya Ghosh, said the altercation started a few minutes before the incident, when a ground staff, Juby Thomas, warned Katyal to stay away from a lift he was "inadvertently advancing towards".
The airline’s late public apology, which came three weeks after the incident, and action to fire an employee who shot a video of the scuffle, didn’t help as angry comments poured into social media, with the hashtag #boycottIndiGo trending on Twitter on Tuesday and Wednesday. The government said it has sought a report on the incident.
Shares of Interglobe Aviation, the airline’s parent, fell 2.29% to end the day at Rs 1,181.75 on the BSE, underperforming the benchmark Sensex that closed 0.46% lower.
The civil aviation ministry has sought a detailed report of the incident, minister of state Jayant Sinha said on Twitter. The minister said he will meet Montu Kalra, the IndiGo staff who shot the video and was later terminated by the airline. He also hoped that the passenger, Rajiv Katyal, would file a police complaint against his assaulters.
The manhandling incident that occurred on October 15 came into public attention on Tuesday, after the video shot by Kalra surfaced in the media.
The video shows Katyal just about to board a shuttle to the Delhi airport's arrival terminal after having deplaned from a flight that came from Chennai. It finds him in a heated altercation with IndiGo's ground staff. Katyal is accused of abusing an employee which he irritably denies. The footage shows the IndiGo staff shoving the passenger to ground and pinning him down there.
In a seven-page letter to the ministry, IndiGo's president, Aditya Ghosh, said the altercation started a few minutes before the incident, when a ground staff, Juby Thomas, warned Katyal to stay away from a lift he was "inadvertently advancing towards".
