An Indigo customer from Noida found out that his flight booking comprising eight tickets for his family worth Rs 72,600 was cancelled without his consent after he revealed his PNR to an airline trainee who communicated with him via Indigo's official X handle.
Nishith Chaturvedi, a software engineer with Cisco, told Moneycontrol that the incident happened on January 7, hours before he and his family were scheduled to take the flight from Thiruvananthapuram to Delhi.
"I was trying to do the web check-in around 1 am on January 7 when I saw that auto-assignment of seats was not available. Frustrated with having to pay extra money for seats again, I sent a message to Indigo's official X handle via DM," the 39-year-old said.
Minutes later, he received a response from a customer support executive who identified herself as Diyashi with whom he shared the PNR.
At 1.38 am, he received an email from Cleartrip (that Moneycontrol has access to) -- the agency through which he had booked the tickets -- that his tickets were cancelled.
Shocked, Chaturvedi immediately called the Indigo customer care number but received little help.
"When I called customer care, they didn't have any solid answer. After a three-hour-long call, I was told to wait for two more hours. By that time I thought the tickets were cancelled by the staff by mistake and I was panicking because the flight was in six hours," he told Moneycontrol. "After multiple calls and follow-ups, Indigo representatives told me that the booking was cancelled from my end. When I said that it wasn't possible, they said that Cleartrip cancelled it."
But Cleartrip representatives too stated that they were not involved with the cancellation. Then, Indigo informed Chaturvedi that someone had changed his registered phone number and email id in their systems. They said that they would investigate the case and refund the money if it turned out to be their fault and further asked Chaturvedi to book a fresh set of tickets.
"Indigo was refusing to accept the security lapse. Also, the tickets were worth more than Rs 72,000. It was not a small amount and booking tickets again would mean a total expense of about Rs 1.5 lakh. How can a regular person afford that? And by that time I was really frustrated. Why should I pay extra money for something that isn't my fault? But since time was running out and we had to catch the flight, I ended up buying tickets again but continued to fight for a refund."
Finally, at around 4 pm, Indigo informed him that a refund was initiated and Cleartrip would return the original booking amount to him. It was later confirmed by the booking agency via email.
Meanwhile, he and his family spent the night at the airport in Thiruvananthapuram waiting for the Indigo and Cleartrip authorities to resolve the matter. "I have a small kid and was travelling with family. It was really inconvenient to stay at the airport for eight to nine hours without a clue about what was happening," Chaturvedi said.
The software engineer also commented on Indigo's refusal to admit to a security lapse. "If they didn't cancel my tickets, and neither did Cleartrip and there definitely was a lapse. And how were my phone number and email id changed in their systems when I did not initiate it?" he asked.
Reacting to the incident, in a statement to Moneycontrol, Indigo said, "We are aware of an incident involving an IndiGo customer who was defrauded by cybercriminals. The passenger had reached out to the Indigo team on X (formerly Twitter) with their PNR details visible in the public domain. Indigo's social media team assisted the passenger and advised not to share PNR details in public. However, it seems that a fraudster obtained the passenger’s PNR to change the personal details and subsequently cancelled the bookings."
The airline added that it offered the passenger a waiver of the cancellation fee on the original tickets as a gesture of goodwill.
"Indigo maintains industry-standard cybersecurity protocols and works constantly to strengthen them. All customers are urged not to share their PNR or contact details with any unauthorised person or website or publish it on any public platforms like X," it added.
This is the second instance in which an Indigo customer has complained of fraudulent activities. Earlier this month, a 32-year-old woman in Bengaluru foiled a scam attempt when cyber criminals posed as agents of Indigo airline and tried to make her pay around Rs 15,600. After a few questions, however, the woman grew suspicious and called up the official helpline number of the airline to realise that she narrowly escaped being cheated by scamsters.
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