NEW DELHI/BENGALURU: India’s IndiGo is battling growing passenger fury over delays in finding and delivering thousands of stranded bags, with social media flooded with photos of luggage piling up at airports after last week’s large-scale flight disruptions. IndiGo, which has 65 percent of the domestic market, has apologized after canceling more than 2,000 flights as it failed to plan in time for stricter rules governing pilot rest, leading to crew shortages. The delays jolted tens of thousands of people, hitting travel, holiday and wedding plans in one of the worst disruptions in Indian aviation history. But last-minute cancelations and the multiple connecting flights used to reroute passengers, has also left thousands of suitcases and bags misplaced, some containing valuable items such as passports, house keys and medicines.
Passengers furious as bags lost, wedding clothes missing
Social media posts showed security-tagged bags piled up in terminal areas in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru airports with many furious passengers seeking help from IndiGo’s social media team on X. “Delhi Left Holding The Bag,” read the headline of a Times of India newspaper photo that went viral showing hundreds of bags in an area typically meant for passengers to sit.
The Indian government in a statement late on Sunday said it had ordered IndiGo to “trace and deliver all baggage separated from passengers due to disruptions within 48 hours.” By Saturday, the airline had delivered 3,000 pieces of baggage to passengers across India, the government said.
No response on help lines, passenger says
Vikash Bajpai, 47, said he had been waiting for four days for the luggage he and his 72-year-old mother checked in for their flight home to Pune from Kanpur city where they had attended a wedding.
They only reached home after spending a night in a New Delhi hotel, taking a series of connections to Mumbai, and then a taxi to Pune.
There was no sign of their bags when they landed in Mumbai. “I was given a number to call, but nobody answers the phone. The luggage has expensive wedding clothes and shoes, and my mother’s medication,” Bajpai said, estimating the contents were worth 90,000 rupees ($1,000).
“I am extremely upset.”
A senior IndiGo executive said on condition of anonymity the airline was working “round the clock” to clear the bags and ensure they reached their customers.
Deepak Chetry said he finally got his bags from IndiGo on Saturday, but only after waiting an entire night outside the Bengaluru airport. “All we got was a bottle of water and juice,” Chetry said.
Where’s my bag? India’s IndiGo battles passenger fury over luggage lost in chaos
https://arab.news/g8jdq
Where’s my bag? India’s IndiGo battles passenger fury over luggage lost in chaos
- Customers complain they are not able to find their luggage
- Government orders IndiGo to deliver luggage promptly
WHO chief says reasons US gave for withdrawing ‘untrue’
- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a joint statement Thursday that Washington had formally withdrawn from the WHO
- And in a post on X, Tedros added: “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue”
GENEVA: The head of the UN’s health agency on Saturday pushed back against Washington’s stated reasons for withdrawing from the World Health Organization, dismissing US criticism of the WHO as “untrue.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that US announcement this week that it had formally withdrawn from the WHO “makes both the US and the world less safe.”
And in a post on X, he added: “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue.”
He insisted: “WHO has always engaged with the US, and all Member States, with full respect for their sovereignty.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a joint statement Thursday that Washington had formally withdrawn from the WHO.
They accused the agency, of numerous “failures during the Covid-19 pandemic” and of acting “repeatedly against the interests of the United States.”
The WHO has not yet confirmed that the US withdrawal has taken effect.
- ‘Trashed and tarnished’ -
The two US officials said the WHO had “trashed and tarnished” the United States, and had compromised its independence.
“The reverse is true,” the WHO said in a statement.
“As we do with every Member State, WHO has always sought to engage with the United States in good faith.”
The agency strenuously rejected the accusation from Rubio and Kennedy that its Covid response had “obstructed the timely and accurate sharing of critical information that could have saved American lives and then concealed those failures.”
Kennedy also suggested in a video posted to X Friday that the WHO was responsible for “the Americans who died alone in nursing homes (and) the small businesses that were destroyed by reckless mandates” to wear masks and get vaccinated.
The US withdrawal, he insisted, was about “protecting American sovereignty, and putting US public health back in the hands of the American people.”
Tedros warned on X that the statement “contains inaccurate information.”
“Throughout the pandemic, WHO acted quickly, shared all information it had rapidly and transparently with the world, and advised Member States on the basis of the best available evidence,” the agency said.
“WHO recommended the use of masks, vaccines and physical distancing, but at no stage recommended mask mandates, vaccine mandates or lockdowns,” it added.
“We supported sovereign governments to make decisions they believed were in the best interests of their people, but the decisions were theirs.”
- Withdrawal ‘raises issues’ -
The row came as Washington struggled to dislodge itself from the WHO, a year after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to that effect.
The one-year withdrawal process reached completion on Thursday, but Kennedy and Rubio regretted in their statement that the UN health agency had “not approved our withdrawal and, in fact, claims that we owe it compensation.”
WHO has highlighted that when Washington joined the organization in 1948, it reserved the right to withdraw, as long as it gave one year’s notice and had met “its financial obligations to the organization in full for the current fiscal year.”
But Washington has not paid its 2024 or 2025 dues, and is behind around $260 million.
“The notification of withdrawal raises issues,” WHO said Saturday, adding that the topic would be examined during WHO’s Executive Board meeting next month and by the annual World Health Assembly meeting in May.
“We hope the US will return to active participation in WHO in the future,” Tedros said Saturday.
“Meanwhile, WHO remains steadfastly committed to working with all countries in pursuit of its core mission and constitutional mandate: the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right for all people.”
