Feb 4th,

2008
                    

                    
Having
safely delivered the Blue Ballantine’s to Vinod and after spending time
there I decided it was high time to purchase my air ticket to Vizag for
a flight the same day. I glanced at my watch. 12:30am it read. Sounds
about right. I landed about 3 hours ago. So I headed off to the airport
to see about the ticket.

There
has been a splurge of new airline carriers in the domestic airline
market for India over the recent years. My personal favourite -
Kingfisher - was sold out. My only options were Indigo and Air Deccan.
I mulled over this. I had flown Air Deccan before. I reflected on my
previous experience and why I never chose them even in desperate times.
All I could remember was that the last time I took this plane a bunch
of 12th graders climbed in donning flight crew uniforms and took the
plane off the ground. That kinda scared me a bit but obviously I made
it alive. I was in no mood to try out a new carrier - esp. with a name
as lame as Indigo. Don’t even get me started on Spice Jet. My opinion
on anything Spice starts at the bottom of the ocean. Think about it -
Old Spice, Spice Girls, Spice Mobile, Bollywood Spice, Sugar and Spice
... you get the idea.

So
Air Deccan it was. Flight starts out at 10:30am. BONUS. I showed up at
9:30am. Went to the check-in line. They said it was delayed due to
technical reasons. Flight was scheduled for 12:50pm. Shame on me for
not asking what the technical reasons were. 4 coffees and a book later
there was still 1 hour to go. Had this been any other airport bird
watching would have filled in the gaps. Not so in Chennai. Birds are
absent and you won’t miss much by being blind in this city. Restated -
if you are a Chennai resident being blind has the distinct advantage of
not accidentally running into ugliness.

At
12:30pm they announced a further delay of the flight to Vizag. OK...
this was not going to be a pleasant day for a lot of people if I could
help it. First stop - Boarding Gate. I found 1 flustered guy and a
whimpering girl. They were already being assailed by 15 irate
passengers. "Are you mad?", "Gimme my money back", "What is the
guaratee of no further delay?"... I butted in "Who is in charge here?"
I demanded of the guy since the girl was cowering. He didn’t say
anything. Then I looked at the girl - she said in a meek voice "I am
the supervisor, sir". I asked "Where is your boss?" She said "There is
no one else. I am in charge of all flight operations." I thought - Well...
sorry sister - I hope someone said they loved you before you left home
today coz I ain’t and the rest of these passengers are going to kill you. The rest of the conversation went like this -

Me: Where is the flight currently?
She: I don’t know.
Me: Has it taken off the originating airport?
She: I don’t know.
Me: Why is it delayed?
She: Technical Reasons.
Me: What kind?
She: Excuse me?
Me: WHAT KIND of technical reason? Engine trouble, systems check, pilot forgot his keys, what KIND of trouble?
She: I don’t know.
Me:
This is YOUR airline. You represent it. You’re the supervisor. You
should be ashamed of not knowing what’s wrong with the plane or where
the heck it is. FIND OUT AND LET ME KNOW.
She jumps on the phone. A few minutes later...

She: There is a problem with the lights.
Me: It takes your ground crew 6 hours to fix lights?
She: Sorry sir.
Me: What are you doing about food arrangements for all of us?
She: Excuse me?
Me:
It’s 1pm - there’s a mother and a child here and a few old people in
the back. We’re all starving. What are you going to do about food?
She starts telling the guy to start making food arrangements.

Me: Worst case if this flight is cancelled will you rebook us for tomorrow.
She: Yes sir, based on availability.
Me: And pay for overnight stay accommodations for those who are not living in Chennai.
She: ummm.... I can’t say anything about that sir.
Me: You better start thinking about it if it doesn’t work out.
Someone mentioned that Kingfisher and Air Deccan had recently merged. This gave me more juice to go on.

Me: Can you find out if Kingfisher can give you a plane to fly us?
She: I don’t know sir. I don’t think so.
Me: Well find out and let me know. Do your damn job.
She jumps back on the phone. I leave the scene. People get back to yelling at her.

I
go back to reading my book and around 1:30pm they announce they have
readied another aircraft only for the Chennai - Vizag passengers. Sure
enough it was a Kingfisher airline lying around on the tarmac. We all
board the bus and go to the airline. Once we got there I noticed that
they had not yet readied the aircraft but were still doing system
checks on it. 45min in the Chennai heat later my boiling point was
being reached at exponential speed. Just before I could pop another
blood vessel they started boarding the flight. The flight took off
finally. However I couldn’t help but notice how the airline pilot was
taxiing as though he was driving an auto-rickshaw. I made a mental note
to blast the pilot once we landed in Vizag.

An
hour or so into the flight Air Deccan was proud to announce that the
water it was serving was complimentary. Yippee!! I knew what was coming
up next. They’d charge for the food. I was ready for this. The 2 air
hostesses came around wheeling the food cart saying "Would you like to
purchase anything?" Wrong question. Bad timing. I first paid for my
soft drink - Rs.20. Then took the drink and then continued to give them
a tirade of how arrogant and shameless they were to keep 80 passengers
waiting for 5 hours, making most of us skip lunch, and then be
indignant enough to charge us for food on the plane. The air hostess
apologized. Bad move. I said "Why don’t you starve for 5 hours through
lunch and I’ll ask you to pay for your own food and then tell you I’m
sorry." I think she got the point. She gave me my money back and then
gave me a comment card. Yet another bad move. When I’m hopping mad a
comment card should be the last thing on your mind. There wasn’t enough
space on the card.

Finally
we landed!!!

So
Rs.6500 and 7 hours later I finally landed in Vizag. This experience
will serve me very well the next time I think about flying Air Deccan.
Maybe Indigo wasn’t such a dumb name after all. In all honesty this
could have happened on any airline. I was just irritated at the way Air
Deccan handled the crisis... or failed to handle it in this case. I’m
sure other airlines would have handled it differently - some better
some worse. Who cares as long as the airline is operating fine without
issues? What really matters is how they operate in a crisis, ain’t it?

No. of times flown on this Airlines:	Between 1 - 3
Class flown most frequently:	Economy Class