The Day IndiGo Taught Every CEO: Empathy Isn’t Optional, It’s Oxygen

It’s the peak wedding and holiday season in India. Airports across tier-1 metros were packed with families going on vacation, brides and grooms waiting to get to their own wedding, elderly parents in wheelchairs, and honeymooners clutching their boarding passes like golden tickets. Then, without warning, the country’s largest airline cancelled 25% of their flights. That’s around 3,000 flights in a single week. Airports turned into rehabilitation camps. A father begging for a sanitary pad for his daughter, a foreign tourist sobbing on camera, and a man missing his mother’s funeral. In the middle of this perfect storm, the CEO of IndiGo Airlines, Pieter Elbers, dropped a three-minute video apology from the quiet safety of an office, reading a script with all the warmth of a quarterly earnings Zoom call.

What must have been a reputation-saving moment for a company in crisis became the spark that turned frustration to fury, flight cancellations into boycott pledges, and a manageable operational crisis into a full-blown existential threat for the country’s most profitable airline. This wasn’t bad luck or bad weather. It was a textbook demonstration of how quickly a crisis can metastasize when C-suite leaders treat crisis communications as a compliance checkbox. This incident is a masterclass in why C-Level leaders must overhaul their crisis communication strategies or risk torpedoing their brand reputation. 

Dissecting What Went Wrong 

Elbers’ video was a polished affair: a sincere apology, blame shifted to the ‘perfect storm’ of bad weather, technical glitches, and regulatory changes, with the promise of swift recovery by December 15. The CEO outlined three lines of action, including operational resets, enhanced customer service and swift refunds. On paper, it ticked all the boxes, but in execution, it reeked of detachment and lack of accountability. Delivered from what social media users termed, “…an insult to everybody affected,” it didn’t feel like a heartfelt address to tens of thousands of people in distress. Social media erupted in fury, with viral clips zooming in on his blank expression. 

This points to a fundamental flaw in tackling crises effectively, and it is a stark reminder of how empathy is oxygen when calamity strikes. In IndiGo’s case, the video dropped too late, a day after chaos erupted. The crisis could have been preempted and managed proactively. The result: passengers being ghosted, boarding passes issued for doomed flights, and staff instructing furious people to wait with no other solution in hand. 

The CEO’s deflection to external factors in the apology video wasn’t lost to the internet. The failure to take accountability for lack of action, despite two years of notice of upcoming FDTL rules, and the airline prioritizing lean operations, while knowing what was at stake, enraged its customers further. This gaslighting amplified fury, with X (formerly Twitter) buzzing under hashtags like #IndiGoCrisis, calls for boycotts, and even demands to nationalize the airline.

Lessons for C-Suite Leaders on Crisis Communication

Lesson 1:

Communication is leadership in action. Silence delayed breeds confusion and erodes trust. C-Suite leaders must be visible early, owning the mess with empathy, instead of causing more confusion. Visibility signals ownership. For instance, Southwest Airlines’ CEO Bob Jordan had personally engaged with customers during their 2022 holiday meltdown. The airline also owned up to its mistakes, which went a long way in recovery. C-level leaders should communicate early and often, using simple language to acknowledge pain points directly. For example, “We know you’re missing important events and we’re prioritizing reroutes for those”. Pair these with visible actions like on-site presence or live Q&A sessions to build trust. For prevention, conduct regular scenario simulations and update crisis paybooks regularly, incorporating feedback from past incidents and how those crises were handled. 

Lesson 2:

Empower frontline teams to tackle the crisis with empathy. In IndiGo’s case, frontline workers became scapegoats for public anger, who had no choice but to absorb the abuse, without the right tools to act. They lacked real-time information, authority to grant refunds, or any route to escalate issues, leaving them helpless, much like passengers at the airport. In crises, the C-Suite’s role is to back them, not micromanage from afar. Offering frontline workers the right tools to handle crises builds resilience and prevents issues from snowballing into full-blown damage to brand reputation. Equip staff with decision-making tools such as mobile apps for instant refunds or escalations, and provide de-escalation training focused on empathetic phrases like “I understand how frustrating this is; let’s fix it together, we’ve got you.” To prevent frontline workers from turning into lame ducks in a crisis moment, implement cross-training programs and AI-driven alert systems to flag issues before they escalate, reducing the burden on ground crews during peaks.   

Lesson 3:

Crisis management must be preventive. To achieve this, synchronicity with stakeholders is critical. IndiGo’s monopoly-like 65% market share exposed India’s aviation vulnerabilities, but the crisis also highlighted disconnected ecosystems: opportunistic fares by competitors, regulators stepping in too late, and reactivity to a situation that could have been predicted and managed well in advance. It’s a lesson in how foreseeing a crisis and preparing for it is an absolute must-have for C-suite leaders. Start by collaborating with authorities well in advance. In IndiGo’s case, the airline could have notified the relevant authorities of staff shortages or obtained legal relief early on to stop the mess from happening in the first place. Communicating transparently with partners is critical to preempt and manage a crisis before it adversely affects the customer. This allows companies time to prepare contingency plans. Preemptively, activate a pre-vetted response team that involves PR, legal, and operations for coordinated updates across channels. This stops communications from breaking down. Leverage empathy mapping to anticipate stakeholder needs, like what data regulators want and solutions customers need.

Lesson 4:

Culture shines in crisis. An open letter from IndiGo pilots, who labelled it as “IndiGo’s culture of greed”, added fuel to an already burning fire, bringing out the reality of fatigued crew members and ignored warnings from regulators. The onus is on C-Suite leaders to set the tone. Prioritizing short-term gains over empathy-led communication invites disaster. More importantly, once a crisis situation hits, it is critical to rebuild brand reputation with authenticity. While refunds and fare waivers are the right steps, true recovery demands a cultural shift from the top. Foster empathy at the C-level by mandating leader “walkabouts” to gather employee input, and integrate it into KPIs. Address issues like IndiGo’s alleged “toxic culture” with anonymous feedback tools and fatigue monitoring apps. A preventive action to take would be embedding risk assessments in board meetings and running annual culture audits to spot risky decisions that could turn into crisis early on.

Lesson 5:

Embrace digital realities. Social media certainly amplified the outrage, with hundreds of thousands of posts going viral. This is a reminder of why C-Suites need real-time monitoring and agile responses, not scripted videos. Tools like sentiment analysis can guide empathetic, timely interventions. In the age of social media, enterprises cannot ignore social sentiment monitoring. Use AI dashboards that make it easier to respond to viral posts within hours using personalized templates that show understanding, such as quoting user stories in apologies. For prevention, invest in predictive analytics to forecast disruptions and draft multi-channel comms plans in advance, ensuring agility in hyper-connected environments. 

Final Thoughts

The IndiGo crisis, costing bookings and trust, proves that in today’s hyper-connected world, poor crisis communication can ground even giants. For C-Suite leaders, the takeaway is clear: Master the art of human, proactive dialogue, or watch your empire nosedive. As aviation rebounds, let this be the lesson that teaches C-level leaders the importance of empathy in turbulent times.