Airline Accountability in India

Air travel in India has grown rapidly over the past two decades, symbolizing progress, mobility, and aspiration. For the ordinary traveller, flying is not a luxury anymore it is often a necessity. Students travel for exams, patients for treatment, families for emergencies, and workers for jobs that demand them to move quickly across states. Yet the treatment meted out to them is as though they are mere inconveniences in the grand operations of corporate giants. Behind the glossy advertisements of seamless experiences and smiling crew lies a troubling reality that every common passenger has faced a system designed with strict penalties for the customer but endless excuses for the airline. If a passenger is five minutes late to the boarding gate, the doors are slammed shut, often with cold indifference and sometimes even arrogance from staff.

They never pause to consider that airports in India are overcrowded, security checks are lengthy, baggage queues are unpredictable, and traffic jams outside terminals can turn the best-planned journey into a last-minute dash. But when the same airline decides to keep hundreds of passengers waiting on the tarmac, or inside a suffocating aircraft with no explanation, or delays departure for an hour because of cleaning or operational lapses, there is no accountability, no apology, and certainly no compensation. The hypocrisy is galling, and it exposes a deep imbalance in the relationship between airlines and the people they are supposed to serve.

Flights are routinely delayed not because of weather or uncontrollable emergencies but because an aircraft is not cleaned on time, because ground staff are slow to coordinate, or because crew scheduling has gone wrong. Passengers are herded into buses, dropped near the aircraft, and then told to stand around for half an hour while nothing happens. Or worse, they are boarded and then kept waiting on the runway with announcements that mean little: “awaiting clearance,” “operational delay,” “slight technical issue.” The truth is rarely shared, and passengers are treated like children who must sit quietly while the adults sort things out. The airlines know that in India, people have limited options and little recourse. They know that complaining takes time, energy, and persistence, and that most passengers will simply grumble and move on. This is their tactic wear you down with indifference until you stop resisting.

Airlines have developed a new trick to fool passengers and regulators. They often claim flights have “arrived on time” when in reality passengers are kept waiting near the runway or in holding areas. By manipulating the recorded block time, the moment, the aircraft wheels touch down they count the flight as “on time,” even if passengers are stranded inside for thirty minutes waiting for a gate. And whenever questioned, the ready-made excuse is ATC clearance. Air Traffic Control, a convenient scapegoat, is blamed for almost everything, from delays to holding patterns to late arrivals. This way, airlines shield themselves from accountability by transferring the blame onto a faceless authority that passengers cannot challenge. The scam is simple; advertise punctuality, file paperwork that shows “before time” arrivals, but treat passengers like cattle who must wait until it suits the airline to actually let them off. This manipulation of data is not a small annoyance it is outright fraud on the common man who trusted the airline’s promise of reliability.

The disparity in treatment is striking. The passenger who is five minutes late is branded irresponsible, denied boarding, and sometimes even made to buy a new ticket at exorbitant last-minute rates. But the airline that delays hundreds of people by an hour, causing missed connections, ruined plans, and financial loss, simply shrugs. At most, they offer a bottle of water or a snack if the delay crosses a certain threshold. There is no penalty that matches the scale of inconvenience they cause. This one-sided arrangement amounts to nothing short of exploitation. It is the arrogance of corporations that know regulators are toothless and that governments are reluctant to act against them.

The larger question is why India tolerates such behaviour. Part of the answer lies in the weak enforcement of passenger rights. The so-called charter of rights announced years ago remains more a guideline than law. Airlines are required to provide refreshments during long delays and refunds for cancellations, but the enforcement is patchy and the penalties minimal.

Complaints to regulators vanish into bureaucracy, and even consumer courts take months if not years to resolve disputes. In the meantime, airlines continue their old practices. Without fear of punishment, there is no incentive to change. Another reason is the lack of strong competition. The market is concentrated in the hands of a few players, who know passengers will return to them regardless of bad experiences because there are limited alternatives. This monopoly-like environment breeds arrogance and contempt.

GOI must understand if they are serious about treating citizens with dignity, then airlines must be held to the same standards they impose on passengers. If a gate is closed strictly at 20 minutes before departure, then airlines must also be forced to compensate every passenger if a flight is delayed by even half an hour due to their own failings. If passengers are made to pay extra for baggage, snacks, or seat selection, then airlines must also be made to pay when they provide substandard service. There must be laws that recognize that time lost is money lost, that inconvenience caused is a form of injury, and that accountability cannot be one-sided.

The government must strengthen regulators, empower consumer forums, and impose meaningful financial penalties for unjustified delays and rude treatment. Airlines must be required to publicly disclose reasons for delays and keep a record of operational lapses. Staff must be retrained to treat passengers as human beings, not irritants.

The common man in India deserves better. The airports may be shiny and the planes modern, but the treatment remains colonial a system where the powerful dictate terms and the ordinary citizen must silently comply. Air travel should not be a humiliation ritual where you are punished for being late but forced to endure when the airline is. Accountability cannot be selective. Respect cannot be conditional. And dignity cannot be optional. Unless this country fixes the broken culture of its airlines, the promise of air travel will remain a half-truth a dream sold with smiles but delivered with arrogance.