Podcaster claims he was offered ₹6,000 ‘bribe’ to remove post against IndiGo, airline responds | Trending

A podcaster and entrepreneur has accused IndiGo of attempting to “bribe” him after his post complaining about the change in his flight timings went viral on social media. Prakhar Gupta recently took to X to share that his early morning flight was “preponed” the airlines and he was informed about the change just 2.5 hours before. Prakhar Gupta recently took to X to share that his early morning flight was “preponed” IndiGo.(X/@prvkhvr) “How do you change a flight time and PREPONE it, 2.5 hours before the flight at 4 AM in the morning, expect me to make it on time, and then when I do get there 5 minutes behind on the new time, you do not let me check in my bag and make me pay for a new flight?” he wrote in his post. The host of Prakhar Ke Pravachan said that he did not get an email informing him of the change and just received a text from the airline at 4am. “Flight providers cannot whimsically play with people’s times and lives without us being compensated, and more so without making us pay more for their errors. This is a violation of any reasonable terms of service,” he said. Gupta also said that IndiGo staff behaved “rudely” with him as well as his co-passenger. “They were also unprofessional, playing very dasteful private voice messages to each other on speaker phone and giggling at the obscenity while “resolving” our issue,” he said. Elaborating on IndiGo staff’s “unprofessional” behaviour, Gupta said: “Mind you, at this point I had paid the extra because I don’t want a money hassle. They were also unprofessional, playing very dasteful private voice messages to each other on speaker phone and giggling at the obscenity while ‘resolving’ our issue.” Gupta also expressed his frustration over a “suspicious” adjustment in fee during the ticket change. Allegations of ‘bribe’The post quickly gained over 1.3 million views on X and the airline responded to the entrepreneur’s complaint. “Mr Gupta, we are currently looking into this and will reach out to you soon to resolve the matter,” an airline representative wrote. The podcast host quickly hit back claiming that airlines “tried to bribe me with 6000 rupees” to remove this post. “No apology, either written or verbal, issued. However, safe to say that social media pressure does work. Apparently Indigo HQ is now involved, but no help has been offered,” he wrote. The entrepreneur even lashed out at the IndiGo CEO. He offered to fly him out first class to his studio to show him “the unwavering Indian Tolerance we are famous for”. IndiGo respondsAmid the ongoing exchange, IndiGo issued a press statement reiterating that the changes to the flight timings were due to Republic Day security measures and all passengers were informed about them in advance. “We promptly communicated these schedule adjustments to passengers upon implementation. Our teams made every effort to ass passengers arriving after the revised timings. In one instance, a passenger who arrived beyond the original flight time was extended the option of an alternative flight with minimal charges as a gesture of goodwill,” they said, in an apparent reference to what happened with Gupta. (Also read: Man claims IndiGo staff left his luggage behind after being told there was no space on flight)