IndiGo confusing passengers on 'Seat Plus Premium Seat'

by Devesh Agarwal

What are the best seats for tall or wide passengers on IndiGo flights? Read on to learn.

Two weeks ago, as I was making a booking on IndiGo for a flight to Delhi, I was offered a chance to buy 'Premium Seats' under the airline's Seat Plus value add-on plan for Rs. 500 per seat per flight. Premium seats include all seats in row 1 (which is against the bulkhead), and rows 12 and 13 (the emergency exit rows), and the windows and aisle seats in rows 2 and 3.

On its website IndiGo advertises these "premium seats" as offering "extra leg room", reinforced with a graphic. As a frequent traveller, I was fairly certain that this information was inaccurate.

IndiGo's description of Seat Plus Premium Seating on November 19, 2013.

To the best of my knowledge IndiGo does not offer any additional leg room on rows 2 and 3, since it keeps the same seat pitch of 30 inches for all its rows, with the exception of the two emergency exit rows 12 and 13. But, may be the airline had made some recent changes?

To dispel my doubts I contacted the call centre, and after many holds of "a few minutes" the agent was unable to say one way or the other. Even the airline's spokespersons were unable to clarify the doubts when I contacted them.

On November 22, when I flew the airline's newest A320 VT-IFV from Bangalore to Mumbai, I confirmed there is no additional or extra legroom in rows 2 and 3.

Seat plus description page on December 3, 2013

So one must ask why is IndiGo indulging in such practices? Someone at the airline over-zealous to get more value added revenue? One could take it as misleading advertising, and over-selling a feature that does not exist.

On December 3rd, As I web-checked-in for my flight, I decided to look-up the 'Seat Plus' information page, again.

Lo and behold, there is no change in the page even though I had pointed out to IndiGo the misleading information on their site two weeks ago.

So this clarification and warning to all the tall people looking for extra leg-room. Stick with rows 12 and 13. Even row 1 may not offer you the leg-room you desire. For the extra wide bodies (XWBs) like me, do not choose rows 12 and 13. IndiGo uses non-standard shorter seat-belts, and cabin crew are prohibited by regulations from giving you an extension seat-belt if you are seated in an emergency exit row.

I invited IndiGo to comment on this story, but there is no response from the airline till the publishing time. 

Do you think IndiGo is misleading its customers? Share your thoughts on this via a comment.

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Airline consumer complaints down from previous year

By BA Staff

Airline consumer complaints filed with DOT’s Aviation Consumer Protection Division during the first nine months of this year were down 14.1 percent from the first nine months of 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report released.

From January to September 2013, the Department received 10,439 consumer complaints, down from the total of 12,153 filed during the first nine months of 2012. In September, the Department received 1,008 complaints about airline service from consumers, down 6.8 percent from the 1,081 complaints filed in September 2012 and down 23.5 percent from the 1,318 received in August 2013.

The consumer report also includes data on tarmac delays, on-time performance, cancellations, chronically delayed flights, and the causes of flight delays filed with the Department’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) by the reporting carriers.  In addition, the consumer report contains information on airline bumping, mishandled baggage reports filed by consumers with the carriers, and disability and discrimination complaints received by DOT’s Aviation Consumer Protection Division.  The consumer report also includes reports of incidents involving the loss, death, or injury of pets traveling by air, as required to be filed by U.S. carriers.

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Air India may not get compensation from Boeing for 787 grounding

by Vinay Bhaskara

After Air India joined most global operators of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner in grounding the aircraft following a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) emergency directive due to issues with the 787’s Lithium-Ion batteries, the beleaguered Indian national carrier is reportedly seeking compensation from Boeing for the losses caused by the grounding. India’s civil aviation minister Ajit Singh said that Air India will seek “some kind of compensation” for the grounding, but that the issue will be taken up with Boeing later; after Air India ascertains the exact cause behind the battery issues and gets the Dreamliner fleet back into service.

Singh re-iterated that Air India plans to take full delivery of its entire order for 27 Dreamliners, and that they will be receiving an interim report from the FAA over the next couple of days that will shed more light on the likely duration of the grounding. Air India has already substituted other wide-body aircraft onto the 787’s operational routes.

Unlike Air India’s attempts for outrageous levels of compensation from Boeing for the delay in Dreamliner deliveries, this request for compensation is relatively reasonable given the nature of this issue.

However, whether or not Air India ultimately receives compensation depends on how the 787 purchase contract between Air India and Boeing was structured.

For example, during the furore over the Airbus A380’s wing cracks earlier this year, Emirates sought compensation to cover the cost of repairing the cracks from Airbus. However, because this provision was not covered in Emirates’ A380 purchase contract with Airbus, they were refused compensation.

Regardless of the merit of Air India’s complaint, they will likely be unsuccessful in securing compensation for the same reason, unless their contract specifically covers such contingencies.

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Infographics: April Data for the Indian Airline Market

The image above shows the load factors at each of India's airlines. Considering that Kingfisher has shrunk so much, it is surprising that their seat factor has not elevated past its pre-downsize levels.

The image above shows on-time performance for April. Two interesting things to note about the data. First, Kingfisher's OTP has come back down to earth. In earlier months after the downsizing, Kingfisher had recorded an OTP of up near 90% but this appears to have been an outlier caused by too many cancellations at Kingfisher. Also interesting to note is GoAir's superb performance. We have personally reviewed GoAir's schedule, and it is heavily concentrated on rush hours in the Metros; I wonder how they manage to outstrip their competitors who have a more balanced schedule?

Market Share data is pretty much as expected, though IndiGo continues to encroach on Jet Airways' position at #1. To give these figures a bit of color, overall domestic traffic figures were 5.1 million for the month, meaning that Jet Airways and IndiGo each carried more than 1 million passengers in April. It's also sad to see Kingfisher as a shell of its former self, stuck in last place - almost the opposite of Gordon Bethune's book "From Worst to First - Behind the Scenes of Continental's Remarkable Comeback"- at Kingfisher they went from First to Worst.

And finally, cancellations and complaints. Air India was predictably atrocious in the cancellation department (and this will only get worse with the IPG strike in May), but held up surprisingly well in the Passenger Complaints department. IndiGo and GoAir on the other hand performed the worst; one has to wonder if under-staffing has become an issue at these two frugal carriers.

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IndiGo and Jet lead performance and market share but also in passenger complaints

India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation reported domestic performance metrics of the seven Indian carriers for February 2011. Overall traffic was up 18.46% to 4.576 million passengers from 3.863 million passengers a year earlier. Cumulative traffic for 2011 is up 19.62% to 9.511 million from 7.951 in 2010.


The Jet Airways group, comprising of Jet Airways, Jet Airways Konnect and Jet Lite, led the industry with a market share of 21.6%. IndiGo led the low cost segment with an 18.7% share.

Compared to a year ago, the value carriers GoAir, IndiGo, and SpiceJet have captured significant market share from national carrier Air India and Dr. Vijay Mallya promoted Kingfisher Airlines, both of whom have been facing financial problems and have not expanded their fleet with the resurging market.

In a recent survey, many passengers place a high priority on on-time performance (OTP), and most airlines have been working hard to address this. Certain guidelines imposed by the regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, have resulted in a streamlining of operations at Mumbai and this is reflected by the industry leading performance of Jet Airways. Kingfisher, which was facing a steady erosion of customers due to a poor OTP, appears to have pulled up its socks to rank second, ahead of traditional punctuality leader IndiGo.


On flight cancellations, IndiGo was the best in the industry at 0.1% and Jet Airways at 0.6% was below the industry median 0.8%. Kingfisher (0.9%), Air India (1.3%) and JetLite (1.4) were the three most unreliable airlines.


Passenger seat factors dipped as the traditional winter travel concluded in January. IndiGo continued to be industry leader filling 87.6% of its capacity, while Air India was the laggard at a pathetic 68%.

In complete contradiction to their industry leading performance, Jet Airways and IndiGo also topped the month on the negative; with the most passenger complaints. Jet received 4.1 complaints per 10,000 passengers and IndiGo was close behind at 3.1, both well ahead of the industry median 2.5.

Contradicting its stereotypical poor image, Air India has the best record in the industry with 1.1 complaints per 10,000 passengers and Kingfisher posted a second best at 1.7 complaints per 10,000 passengers.

What reasons would you attribute to this contradictory performance by both Jet and IndiGo? Conversely why are passengers not complaining about Air India? Post a comment.

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