Why Not Teaching IndiGo a Lesson is the Bad Karma

Indians have an extraordinary cultural reflex: when confronted with injustice, we shrug, sigh, and whisper, “Karma, what to do?” It is a poetic coping mechanism, but a disastrous civic strategy. The recent IndiGo meltdown is a textbook example. Thousands of passengers stranded in terminals without food, water, or answers treated their ordeal not as a violation of rights but as the cosmic settling of scores. But let’s be clear: this had nothing to do with karma and everything to do with corporate negligence, regulatory indifference, and consumer silence.

Air travel is more than a ticketed service; it is a contract of trust. Passengers trade money, predictability, health, and sometimes life plans for safe, reliable mobility. When an airline fails that contract not because of weather, war, or unforeseen calamity, but because it could not meet Directorate General of Civil Aviation's (DGCA’s) staffing norms, the collapse is not destiny. It is dereliction. IndiGo’s failure triggered mass cancellations, endless queues, exhausted families sleeping on airport floors, and job-seekers missing critical interviews. None of this is karmic retribution. It is preventable suffering inflicted by an airline that did not prepare, a regulator that did not enforce, and a ministry that chose silence over scrutiny.

Calling this karma is convenient for the system because it absolves the guilty and paralyses the victims. Worse, believing this myth creates bad karma – the karma of letting injustice repeat unchallenged. When citizens do not push back, corporations and governments learn that consequences are optional. That is how duopolies thrive and how, in India’s aviation market, capitalism has evolved into a cosy club where profits are private and pain is socialised.

Around the world, such negligence provokes uproar and legal repercussions. The EU Regulation 261 mandates up to €600 compensation for delays and cancellations caused by airlines, along with meals, accommodation, and re-routing. Ryanair, Lufthansa and British Airways had learnt their lessons for the fiascos in the past.

Southwest Airlines in the US had experienced litigation, media outrage, and federal pressure, and had to dole out millions of dollars to settle in compensation, refunds and hotel costs. Canada and Australia too have strict guidelines for compensation when airlines goof up.

Now compare this to India. No fines. No mandatory compensation. No ministerial scrutiny. The DGCA issued gentle advisories, not sanctions. In IndiGo’s case, even extended the relaxation rules that affects passenger safety. Passengers queued for hours. Counters were abandoned. Call centres crashed. And the country moved on. When consumer rights become decorative rather than enforceable, corporations respond with theatrical apologies and zero restitution.

This is not fate. It is policy.

And passengers, unintentionally, enable it. Indians will negotiate aggressively with an auto driver but quietly accept an airline refusing to provide water after a 12-hour delay. This passivity emboldens negligence. If people do not document failures, file complaints, or seek legal remedy, airlines will continue treating disruption as an externality, not a liability.

What should passengers do? First, abandon the karma narrative. Justice is not the universe’s job; it is ours. When an airline fails, the response must be procedural, not philosophical.

Passengers should have meticulously documented the following: photos of queues, screenshots of messages, recordings of announcements, receipts of extra expenses, and the absence of staff at service counters. This evidence becomes crucial in consumer courts, which have repeatedly awarded compensation but are scarcely used because people assume litigation is futile and costly. They must know it has no costs.

Second, complaints must move beyond social-media venting. DGCA’s AIRSEWA portal, district consumer forums, and legal notices under breach-of-service provisions are powerful tools. Even modest claims – for meals, hotels, or alternate flights –build pressure on airlines and create public record.

Third, collective action matters. Groups of affected passengers can file class complaints, public interest litigations (PILs), or joint legal claims. Airlines fear collective litigation far more than isolated outrage. In a hyper-connected professional society, a coordinated LinkedIn narrative by CXOs and frequent travellers can damage airline reputation significantly more than angry tweets. Corporate travel desks can also suspend or renegotiate deals with habitual offenders; no airline wants to lose bulk business travellers.

Fourth, India needs its own version of EU261. Civil society groups, legal scholars, and frequent-flyer associations must lobby for binding, automatic compensation for airline-caused disruption. Minimum obligations for refreshments, accommodation, and re-routing must be mandatory, not discretionary. DGCA must impose escalating fines per violation, making non-compliance more expensive than compliance.

IndiGo’s fiasco is not an isolated event; it is a symptom of a market structure that treats passengers as cargo with emotions. Until there is a cost attached to neglect, airlines will continue to apologise without reform. Passengers must understand that accountability begins not in Parliament but at the boarding gate – with evidence, persistence, and organised anger.

Indians usually say that good karma comes from letting go. But civic karma works differently. When citizens tolerate injustice, the system decays. When they resist it, the system reforms. IndiGo’s meltdown demands a national lesson: a ticket is not servitude; a queue is not destiny; and suffering without protest is not spirituality.

If passengers want change, they must push for it — legally, collectively, and relentlessly. Because in a capitalist market, justice is not granted by divine intervention; it is secured by determined consumers. As one exhausted traveller put it, “If the airline won’t land accountability, we must taxi it to the runway ourselves.”

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