Indigo crisis: When delays and silence turned into distrust - Xavier Prabhu

When IndiGo’s operational disruption spiralled into a nationwide passenger crisis, the real damage was not caused by delayed flights alone, but by delayed communication. Drawing from both professional expertise and personal experience as a stranded passenger, Xavier Prabhu, Founder, Chairman & CEO, PRHUB, dissects the episode through a crisis-management lens—laying bare how hesitation in the “golden hour”, lack of frontline empowerment and inconsistent messaging can rapidly erode trust. His analysis offers a timely reality check for Indian corporates navigating crises in an always-on, hyper-digital environment, where silence travels faster than facts and reputational loss compounds long after operations recover. 

A Crisis Seen from Both Sides of the Queue

What struck me most, as a communicator and also first-hand because I myself was stuck, was the time it took for their first statement to hit. Pre-approved holding statements are what every senior communicator is trained to first get going so there is some official communication out there that the audiences can read and absorb while in parallel the company gets its system to swing into action. 

Chaos on the Ground: The Cost of Uncertainty

Beyond the holding statement also, the rearguard action (like quick refunds – I got mine in a week– vouchers for those deeply affected – clear numbers shared – xxx crore in refunds, etc., are all the right things to do) swung in quite late which was surprising personally (as they do have a well-oiled system). By which time the damage was done (know many in my peer circle who will not travel by an Indigo for the foreseeable future unless left with no choice); for a market leader with dominant market share that is a real worry; even more worrying for them will be that many of these are premium customers who anyways would prefer a full-service airline. 

Again speaking from my own experience as I was stranded the whole night ironically for a short flight (Chennai-Bangalore sector), it was absolute lack of clarity and direction on the ground; for example if they had informed me the flight is cancelled and they would fully refund, I would have just looked at the alternate option and moved on; like me thousands would have not turned up at the airports causing the large misery that played out across India’s airports. 

Frontline Staff Without Authority

Many of their frontline staff held up well and some could not understandably; but most expressed helplessness as they said we are also clueless and are waiting for directions from their managers; if only they could have been more informed and empowered this could have been not so bad for the airline. 

Why Indian Companies Struggle with Early Crisis Response

The first reason is lack of well-defined and detailed crisis playbooks and training of their senior staff in each airport on crisis response and communication; one of the things that helps and is usually under prioritised by most companies/ brands is doing a crisis audit by orchestrating a mock crisis once or twice in a year; this helps test how the entire organisation and the laid down protocol is really working on the ground so the gaps can be fixed. 

Second is lack of empowerment of local leaders to tune as per the local context while strictly sticking to the central template/ guidelines and also keeping the central crisis command informed at all times. 

Third is that in a social and digital world, everyone is a creator and armed with camera in their phones (largely high quality) can create quality video content in no time; you are not simply going to be able to control all of them/ all of it. 

The mind-set even today in many companies is operations-first, communications-later whereas, we know that when it comes to a crisis, both need to move at the same time and with equal urgency. 

Trust Erodes Faster Than It Builds

Trust in a service brand is something that is amassed. You lose it slowly, but sadly, it is something that you lose publicly. It’s very difficult to quantify. 

In the Indigo case, the late reaction, inconsistent updates and lack of transparency is what hurt consumer confidence way more than the operational failure itself. 

Many businesses do not quantify trust erosion and that is because sentiment, reputation, and loyalty loss are not measured with the same discipline as revenue.

The long-term impact shows up in ways companies don’t always track, that is higher customer aggression, lower brand forgiveness and increased vulnerability in crises.

Companies must remember that today’s angry passenger is tomorrow’s storyteller and they shape future perception for thousands.

Key Learnings for Indian Corporates

• Test your crisis preparedness periodically – don’t leave it to chance. 
• Have a thorough and well laid system and process ready with everyone involved adequately trained. 
• Sensitise senior management of the company on the key role communications plays over other functions particularly during crises. 
• Frontline is the face of the crisis, even though they have the least say. Any crisis strategy that forgets this is flawed at the core. 
• Don’t leave vacuum; you are essentially losing narrative control fully and it takes much longer and is always more expensive to pull it back later; not sure if hundred per cent pull back is even feasible. 

The Do’s of Crisis Communication

• Holding statement to go immediately 
• Anticipate, train, test & tune – make the crisis response mechanism idiot proof 
• In parallel swing the system into action with quick announcements that claws back confidence and stops further erosion; of course, allowing the positive narrative to start building up 
• Use as many channels to get the response and actions communicated as quickly and as widely (for example, did 3 more Indigo flights thereafter and in one the pilot actually alluded to it which made me realise they are great channels too) 

The Don’ts That Make Things Worse

• Don’t be silent; reduce this period as much as possible
• Don’t let legal run the communications response. Let them review it, but not script it 
• Don’t underestimate how quickly anger scales when physical inconvenience meets digital amplification 
• Don’t worry about over communication; it’s always better than under communication in a crisis