A SpiceJet flight from Dubai to New Delhi landed on Wednesday evening without the luggage of any of its passengers, leaving travellers bewildered and a sea of empty baggage trolleys at Delhi airport.

Flight SG-12 carrying 148 passengers departed around 12pm UAE time (1.30pm IST) after a brief delay and landed at Indira Gandhi International Airport's Terminal 3 around 5pm Indian time, according to Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar. The confusion began when passengers gathered around the conveyor belt, only to discover that not a single bag had made the journey with them.

“The luggage belt stayed empty. One by one, people realised nothing had arrived,” said Pratham Chaudhary from Ghaziabad, as cited in the newspaper.“We were shocked to learn that the entire flight's baggage was still in Dubai.”

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Another passenger, Deepak, summed up the mood on X: "@SpiceJet set a new benchmark today. After delaying take-off by only one hour (yay!), they forgot passengers' luggage at Dubai Airport.”

Airline staff reportedly asked passengers to fill out Baggage Irregularity Reports (BIRs) and assured them their belongings would be flown in on the next available service.

Some travellers said they were later informed that the aircraft had been overweight, forcing the airline to offload all checked-in baggage, an explanation many found hard to believe.“If the bags were already weighed, how did they realise it was overweight after take-off?” asked Suhana Bisht from Noida, who said her luggage contained items worth over Dh5,000.

Reports in Gujarati media said this was not the first such incident involving SpiceJet, adding that the airline has faced repeated criticism for its baggage handling on international routes.

SpiceJet was yet to issue a statement at the time of going to press.

The episode came barely 24 hours after another disruption involving the airline . On Tuesday (October 7), Khaleej Times reported that SpiceJet's Jaipur–Dubai flight SG-57, scheduled to depart at 9.30am, was delayed by 14 hours before being cancelled due to“operational reasons.” Passengers said they were left waiting at Jaipur airport all day without food or accommodation, calling the repeated disruptions“unacceptable.”

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