IndiGo flight takes off early, leaves behind 6 passengers; employee says ‘we consider off-the ground as departure time’

livemint.com:

Airport to reach its destination Mangaluru allegedly left behind six passengers of its behind on Friday. The incident happened after the flight reportedly took off 12 minutes early from the time of departure, a report by Times of India has stated. One of the passenger who was a government official told the daily that flight 6E 6162 was scheduled to depart at 2:55 pm, however, it took off at 2:43 pm.

The passengers were left stranded for six hours and later were accommodated in the next flight 6E -578 at 8:20 pm. As per the report, the flight in which the passengers were accomodated was also delayed by an hour. The government official who was travelling with his friend slammed the airline and said that they were not informed about any early departure of the flight and it is the airline's responsibility to do the same.

He also added that due to the incident they missed many of their meeting which were schedule for the day. "It is customary and the flight operator's responsibility to notify passengers in case of schedule being advanced or delayed. But in our case, we were not informed," the government official said as quoted by TOI.

Further adding, he said, "We had reached the airport on time. We had to wait for six hours at the airport to take the next flight to Mangaluru," as quoted by the daily. Speaking on the incident, an employee from customer experience wing denied the claims made by the passengers and said that the airline considers off-the ground as departure time.

"The flight was out of the gate at 2.43 pm and departed the airport at 2.57 pm. We consider off-the ground as departure time," the employee said as quoted by TOI. Another report by The New Indian Express stated passengers who missed their flight were