Fact Check: IndiGo flight crisis - Flyers stranded on airport tarmac? No, photo is from 2018
A photo claiming to show IndiGo passengers stranded on the airport tarmac amid the ongoing flight cancellation crisis is going viral.
By - M Ramesh Naik
Claim:The photo shows passengers stranded on an airport tarmac due to the ongoing IndiGo flight cancellations.
Fact:The photo is from 2018 and shows passengers who were stuck for seven hours due to the non-availability of crew. It is unrelated to the present crisis.
Hyderabad: Air travel across India remained severely disrupted for the fourth consecutive day after IndiGo cancelled more than 500 flights on Friday, including all flights from New Delhi. The cancellations followed the airline’s struggle to adjust to new pilot flying-time regulations.
Authorities have now provided a temporary exemption from stricter night-duty rules to ease the situation.
Amid these disruptions, a photo showing passengers sitting on the airport tarmac near an IndiGo aircraft is circulating widely with the claim that it reflects the current crisis.
One X user shared the image with the caption, “Modiji had promised that he would make railway stations as classy as airports. Now airports and lounges have become like railway stations.”(Archive)
A similar post can be seen here.(Archive)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the viral claim is false. The photo is not related to the present-day flight disruptions but dates to 2018.
Where is the image from?
A Google reverse image search led us to a report published by The Economic Times on May 14, 2018, titled, ‘IndiGo passengers stranded on tarmac for 7 hours for non-availability of crew.’
The report carries the same photo used in the viral posts. According to the article, an IndiGo Delhi–Bengaluru flight remained parked on the Delhi airport tarmac for over seven hours due to a lack of crew. Passengers were made to wait inside a shuttle, inside the aircraft and eventually on the tarmac.
We also found another report by The Times of India, published on May 15, 2018, with the headline ‘Many left stranded on tarmac as storm delays flight by 7 hours.’
The report similarly explained that although a thunderstorm had disrupted flight operations at IGI Airport, the prolonged wait for passengers on IndiGo’s Delhi–Bengaluru flight 6E 2977 was primarily due to the non-availability of crew. The aircraft finally departed nearly seven hours late, after passengers spent considerable time waiting in the shuttle, inside the plane and on the tarmac.
Since the photo is from 2018 and has no connection to the ongoing IndiGo cancellations, it is clear that the claim is false.
The viral photo is not from the ongoing IndiGo flight crisis. It shows an incident from 2018, when passengers were left waiting for hours due to crew shortage.
Therefore, the claim is false.
