MUMBAI, Dec. 7 -- Mumbai Airport on Saturday witnessed the cancellation of 146 flights of IndiGo in the carrier's ongoing crisis. A spokesperson for Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) said that a host of measures were put in place to ease the crisis-despite space constraints at the airport, special parking arrangements were made to accommodate approximately 25 grounded IndiGo aircraft while the problems of stranded passengers were sought to be ameliorated with additional chairs, complimentary refreshments and additional personnel being deployed at both terminals to facilitate passenger movement. A major outcome of the upheaval has been its cascading effect on the tourism industry. "Nearly 20% of our tours have been cancelled since most participants book their own air tickets," said Prabhulal Joshi of Heena Tours. "I have been getting desperate calls, sometimes as late as 1 am, from people who have booked with us. We have allowed them to postpone their tours. But car rentals and hotels have lost out." Shailesh Patil, who owns Raja Rani travels and is also president of the Maharashtra Tour Organisers Association, pointed out that IndiGo was an airline with excellent credibility built over decades. "Hence the issues of the last two days have taken passengers and the travel industry totally by surprise," he said. "The ordeals passengers have had to face are excruciating, and we totally sympathise with them. We feel things could have been averted to some extent by professional handling on part of the airline, and pre-emptive action taken once the first signs of the problem came to light." Patil added that Indigo's move had "fortunately" got huge negative publicity. "It made things easier for us when we were negotiating with hoteliers and car rental firms to sympathetically consider cases of passengers who were victims," he said. "We share an excellent rapport with most of our hotels, and most were willing to agree to small cancellations and extend credit notes for future use. But many other travel agents are not so fortunate. As for tourists who have booked online, most are running around like headless chicken trying to get a travel refund from faceless OTT platforms." The tour operator said he foresaw a week of "massive customer satisfaction issues", and pointed out that travel agents had been made "scapegoats" by tourists pushing the fraternity to negotiate best with service providers. Abhijit Patil of Raja Rani Travels also felt that Indigo and other entities could have handled the issue better. "Even the ministry of civil aviation could have stepped in much earlier," he said. ""I have seen that in Delhi's Aerocity, tourists are being charged Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 per day by hotels. The travel fraternity has been left to fend for itself."...