Nov 19, 2007 06:57 AM
9187 Views
I flew Air India(AI 112) two days back for my vacation in Delhi from JFK New York. I must say its a worst Airlines I have ever flown with.
My nighmare began when I reached the Air India gate at JFK airport. Visiting home after almost an year I was pretty excited and reached airport early and had to spend 5 hours at the baording gate. Little did I know the place where Air India gates are located at the JFK airport(I am sure the cheapest place) would hardly have one small restaurant. The toilets in that area were stinky and dirty. Hungry since morning I did not get a thing to eat till the time I boarded the aircraft which was already an hour late from the scheduled boarding time. That was just the beginning of my nightmare.
My flight was scheduled to depart at 7:00 PM and no official from Air India was at the gate till that time. The aircraft crew(the young and beautiful air hostesses(read sarcasm) and their pilot)had already arrived in time. Almost around 10-15 minutes later I saw 3-4 people mexicans and blacks(none of them indian) started the gate operations. I was carrying two pieces of carry on items one hand bag and one lap top bag. One of those guys approached me and tagged my hand bag without asking me and telling me that he will have to check that bag in as passengers are allowed to carry only one piece with them onbaord. All over the continental US the domestic flights allow upto two pieces for you to carry on in the cabin. While I was checking my luggage at the Airport none of the air india people told me that I can carry only one item on board. However, I managed to sneak my bag in. This particular flight had a stop over at London heathrow airport. At the london airport they asked all the passengers to go through the security again. This was my first and probably the last flight Via London. I had heard that these SOB English guys are racist but experienced it first hand during my short stop over and London. Since I had two carry on items one white security guy insisted that I combine them in to one.
Since my other bag was completely full I had no way to fit all my stuff inside one bag. The security guy told me that my other option was to look for airindia people and check one of my bags in. If I would have done that it would have put me behind a queue of 200-300 people and I might have missed my flight. I chose to some how fit my latop in the other bag and let him confiscate my laptop bag. The same SOB let several white people carry on two items.
Coming on to food, the food served inside the plane was horrible as well. I have flown Singapore Airline, Cathay Pacific and Lufthansa in the past on my US-India trips and they all had much better Indian food/ Asian Vegetarian meal.
The aircraft christened Bihar(I dont know what on the earth prompted AI to name it after laloo land) is claimed to have been inducted in to AI fleet less than two months back as per the AI website. No doubt it was New but the inflight entertainment system for me and 10-12 other seats in my zone did not work. On bringing this to the notice of an airhostess she simply chose to ignore me. I told another steward about the same problem and he offered me to swap my seat for JFK to London flight. I had to come back to the same seat for London-Delhi segment of my flight.
All in all it was a horrific experience and what it has taught me is this - NEVER FLY AIR INDIA EVEN IF THEY OFFER YOU FREE TICKET.
