Female flyer says IndiGo co-pilot barged into toilet when she was inside

A Mumbai-based woman was left shocked and humiliated after an IndiGo First Officer (co-pilot) forcibly entered a lavatory while she was using it before takeoff. The incident, which the passenger, Rhea Chatterji, detailed in a now-viral LinkedIn post, has sparked widespread public outrage. What startled her further was the airline crew’s immediate attempt to downplay the severity of the incident.

Chatterji, who is the co-founder of a gold merchandise platform and an alumna of the London School of Economics, recounted the ordeal on her social media. She stated that she had boarded a late-night flight on August 8 and went to use the forward lavatory, which was unlocked. She locked the door and was seated when she heard a knock.

After she replied to the first knock, another knock followed, to which she responded more loudly. According to her post, before she could finish speaking, the door was "forcibly opened," and a male crew member "was gazing directly" at her. He then simply said “oh” and shut the door, leaving her in a state of utter shock and feeling "violated."

The ordeal did not end there. Chatterji claimed that after the incident, the female flight attendants tried to minimize her experience, apologizing for the "inconvenience" and telling her "he hadn't seen anything." She emphasized that she felt so uncomfortable that she spent the rest of the 90-minute flight in discomfort and was further agitated when she was asked to go into the cockpit to meet the Captain and First Officer.

After landing, she reached out to IndiGo’s leadership team, but their response, she says, was insufficient. According to Chatterji, the airline offered a refund and vouchers and conveyed "profound remorse" through corporate jargon in an email, but the remorse was never conveyed directly by the individual involved. She made it clear in her post that her motive was not compensation.

Chatterji concluded her post with a powerful message for her network, particularly for women and parents of young children. She said, "IndiGo has demonstrated that if your flight is incident-free, it’s because you took every precaution, presuming the worst – not because IndiGo cared." In response to the viral post, IndiGo issued a public apology, stating that the crew member had been "counselled and sensitised" and that training would be reinforced to prevent such incidents in the future.