Hi all
I had the fortune to fly IA from Hyd to BLR y’day, I would say fortune because I was only Flying to BLR and not Sharjah which was the final destination.
Too long..3 check in counters and a tons of people going to the gulf waiting to check in with waht felt like their entire house holds packed in.funnily they dont have a separate check in nque for domestic passengers not that they are short of counters.
Not too many problems apart from a silly customs declaration that we were asked to fill out.This was a saving grace as being in the international terminal there was no rush, compared to domestic which is chaos in the evening.
Reasonably clean and pretty empty, This again was wonderful compared to the domestic area where you dont have a square foot of space to stand. only thing a lil sidey were all those arabs smoking in the loo after bribing the attendant!!!
Now when’s the nightmare started, there was a security check before boarding which was a major pain as half the souls had really stuffed in their hand baggage and it too them ages to repack it., when I entered the plane I was given a very stern stare by the matron..ooops sorry the air hostess.
The aircraft was the oldest, smelliest and the dirtiest plane that IA could find, It was swarming with mosquitoes and smelling really bad..It seems that IA is under such a loss that they cant buy an air freshner.
there was a tamil newspaper in my seat pocket and when I asked for a english one the air hostess wordlessly plucked a mumbai tabloid from my poor neigh bour’s seat and handed it over to me.
the guy just stared at me and the air hostess who was least bothered, I sheepishly handed the paper back to him.
I was handed over a plate without any introduction, this contained two stale bondas and a tasteless goo passing off for upma. I just left everything and I asked for coffee, She said you have to wait!! so I waited I finally got lukewarm coffee and when I asked for an extra sugar it was like I was asking for the moon, very reluctantly a packet of sugar arrived by then I had finished.
As expected by IA landed with a Thud and woke me up from my bonda induced slumber..I reluctantly I shuffled off the plane to the bus, where I was jammed into a bus resembling a BMTC bus at peak time, they wanted to save cash on fuel so didnt wasnt to use the 2nd bus which anyways was waiting on tarmac.
Luggage
Very good..it came pretty fast as there were a few passengers and I just picked up my bag and ran to the taxi wanting to forget the experience.
Over all I had very few expectations and they weren’t met, comapred to Air Sahara and Air Deccan IA is pretty ok but they are no competition to kingfisher and Jet.
I think IA should rebrand themselves as a low cost airline, It was painful to see such blatant exploitation on IA’s part, its very common news that our so called national airlines are only surviving due to their monopoly on the gulf sector, the least they can do is provide better services and aircraft to the passengers who are keeping them afloat.
Its sad to see those poor souls who probably do not have much education quietly bearing the brunt of IA’s services because they haven’t experienced anything else.