INDIAN AIRLINES Review

In the month of August 2007, I bought a round-trip ticket for December, 2007 from Los Angeles to Calcutta. My Bangkok to Calcutta flight

was on India Airlines. I bought the ticket with the help of a travel agent and then a few weeks later I bought my wife’s ticket (one-way) from another agent but having the same itinerary.

A month later I got a notice from our travel agents saying that India Airlines has rescheduled my flight. When I called the travel agent, he mentioned that IA has rescheduled our flights from the 30th to 31st of December. Since our connecting flights from Bangkok were on the 30th of December, this was not an option. I was really surprised. There were no calls from IA nor did they provide any other option. After trying for 3 days to contact Indian Airlines when my wife finally got through to the IA office, a lady suggested that she can provide her tickets flying out of Calcutta via Chennai on the 28th and my wife can spend the rest two days in Bangkok till her next flight and that we have to arrange for our accommodation and basically fend for ourselves. How unprofessional and blind to customer satisfaction can an airline be, I thought. As if we were supposed to follow whatever order the mighty Maharaja doled out. My wife was peeved and since arguing didn’t help she hung up saying she will call later.

So I approached my agent and asked him to reschedule my other flights from Bangkok to LA to 31st, which my agent did. I also called up my wife’s agent and asked them to reschedule her flights as well which they were kind enough to provide. I was feeling quite happy and thought that this will be the end of it. But little did I know that with India Airlines nothing is done until it is done. You can never be sure until you and your luggage reach your destination safely.

So, after another few weeks I got another mail from our agent saying that IA has rescheduled their flights again. This time from 31st of December to 1st of January. I had to leave for a short office trip so I thought I will deal with this after I return. After my return, when I called up my agent he couldn’t find any IA flight on my itinerary. After further investigation, he found to our utter dismay, that IA did not have any flights flying from Bangkok to Calcutta any more. They basically cancelled the route entirely without informing their passengers or providing any alternatives. How an airline could cancel all their flights for a particular route without any concern for its passengers was beyond anyone.

So, after 4 weeks of fighting and arguing with travel agents and airlines, I finally gave up and bought a new ticket paying a lot more than my original ticket, and for a totally different itinerary which now requires me to stay in Bangkok for a day on my return trip at my expense. Hardly fair I would think and all because some blessed airline cancelled all their flights on a route. Since my wife’s ticket is with a different travel agent, I am still negotiating with that agent for her ticket.

The lesson I leart from this experience was : NEVER FLY ON INDIAN AIRLINES . NEVER EVER, even if I have to pay more dough, or spend more time at a layover. I will make sure that my story gets out to as many people possible and prevent anyone else from going through such a harrowing experience. I think this egregious behavior of IA stems from the fact that their salaries do not depend on customer satisfaction or profits and no matter what happens, the government is still going to pay them their salaries with tax payer money. Why should anyone care if that is the case? I must say I have often wondered if passengers can file a class action lawsuit on Indian Airlines for all the mental trauma and harassment they have caused us, not to mention the time, money and energy spent dealing with them.

Hope this was helpful and hope this helps you in making up your mind whether IA is worth the risk.

R. Banerjee

Los Angeles, CA