Apr 15, 2003 12:07 PM
6333 Views
(Updated Apr 15, 2003 12:08 PM)
I only flew Air India once, from Chicago to New Delhi, and was so horrified by the lousy experience that I swore never to fly with them again. The experience was one of the worst that I have ever had, I present some particulars about the flights below...
Schedules:
While providing 10 flights per week to India from various airports in the New York area (JFK and Newark to be exact), Air India only offers 3 flights a week out of Chicago. Considering the fact that Chicago has the second largest Indian population in the US, one would expect that there would be more AI flights from here, but this is not the case. Recently, AI stopped flying directly to New Delhi from the US, which means that all Delhi bound passengers must now fly to Bombay and then take a shuttle flight to Delhi, which can prove to be a HUGE hassle, as I will show later.
Checkin:
Checking in at O'Hare airport in Chicago was OK, about a 15-20 minute wait in line for economy class passengers. This was fairly impressive considering the fact that there were 350 coach passengers on that flight. However, on the way back, checkin in Delhi was a complete ZOO. There was no order in the lines, and plenty of pushing and shoving...I ended up standing in line 50 minutes to checkin.
Fleet:
Air India operates B747's on their USA-India flights. These planes are ancient, and look like hand-me-downs from European carriers. This is probably a personal preference, but I hate flying on B747's as they always make me feel cramped. Seat covers seemed old and dirty...my seat actually had crumbs on it!
Service:
The Saree clad flight attendants on board the plane made me feel like I was in India already (a good thing). However, their service fell short of the high standards of hospitality inherent in Indian culture. These women were some of the rudest FA's I have ever seen. For example, I had to ask three times to get a glass of water, an hour later an FA practically threw a glass at me, and to top it all off, the water had a hair floating in it.
Meals:
This is one thing that I have to give AI credit for. Air India had some of the best vegetarian meals that I have ever had onboard an airline. The food almost tasted as if it had been catered by a reasonably good Indian restaurant. I also really liked the fact that the FA's handed out menu cards with all the meal options on them during the flight...Air India is one of the only airlines I know of that do this.
Entertainment:
Air India has no personal TV screens in economy class. The movies shown on the main screen are generally B grade American movies, and Bollywood movies. PIA has started offering PTV's in economy, why can't Air India????
Promptness:
Up to this point, the Air India experience seems tolerable. However, it is the lack of promptness that makes me hate Air India so much. On my return journey, my New Delhi-Bombay connection flight was delayed by 9 hours, making me miss my Bombay-Chicago flight. Upon arrival in Bombay, Air India officials were rude, and only after arguing for over two hours, grudgeingly agreed to provide us with hotel accomodations and a replacement flight for the next evening (Bombay-New York on AI, then New York-Chicago on United). The next evening, AI officials tried to deny us boarding on the BOM-NYC flight, and only agreed to let us on board after further arguments.
Had Air India been a bit more prompt, I would have recomended it as a good no-frills airline for USA-India travel. However, due to their lousy reliability records, I would have to suggest avoiding this airline at all costs. The extra 50-100 dollars needed to fly a superior airline are well worth it for the peace of mind.
