I know that most people in this forum are conformists to the sadly popular notion that Air India is as bad as it can get when it comes to flying overseas. If not that bad, at least close. But folks, let us give this airline a break. I have been flying back and forth between the US and India quite a bit these last few years, and to tell you the truth, Air India was quite the antithesis of what most people had described to me.
A month before my trip to India this past August, I was busy scrambling for tickets and my agent quite plainly made it clear that Air India was my ONLY option. At the time, my opinion about Air India (which was clearly based on hearsay) weighed heavily towards the ’’This airline sucks big time’’ school of thought. Of course one of the first things I did was look up good ol’ MS to see what my fellow reviewers thought and I was dismayed even more. There were only about 2 reviews among the 30 odd reviews that I read that had anything even remotely positive to say about Air India. Delays at the airport, haggard old flight attendants with self-esteem(or whatever else) issues, missed flights, lost luggage - the list was endless. I resigned myself to the reality of it all - I had to be prepared for hell in the skies. Not to mention a long arduous hell. Talk about bad karma.
With this extremely blase attitude, I headed to Orlando International. I had 2 flights to catch before I got a taste of desi inflight service (or the alleged lack of it). I flew Orlando to Miami and then Miami back up to JFK where I had a 7 hour wait before the scheduled departure of AI 0102 from JFK to London Heathrow continuing on to Mumbai India. At JFK I hit my first surprise. Usually check in counters don’t usually open until 3-4 hours before departure but here I was, among the first few passengers trickling in at about 1:30 pm (a good 7 hours ahead) and as soon as I got to where the counters were, they opened and I was among the first few. That was a first! I sauntered on to the counter and casually asked the guy for a seat with plenty of leg room, almost half-expected a snotty response but was pleasantly surprised when he asked if I didnt mind an exit seat. I said fine, and sure enough he got me in a seat right up front (which has never happened to me in my flying experience) and I was mighty pleased! Ater this initial accomplishment, I started feeling better already - something told me things were not going to be too bad after all and I held on to that notion as I waited for the next 5 hours before the pre-boarding call was announced.
Sure enough at pretty much the scheduled time, pre-boarding was announced (I had almost expected a delay) and then shortly after the economy boarding started. I saw the flight attendants and the rest of the crew pass us by on my way through the gate security screen and to be honest, not bad at all. It could have been that I was looking at it wholly in perspective but in retrospect maybe not. Barring a couple of female flight attendants, the others were not entirely unfortunate looking. As for the male flight attendants, yeah I was kind of surprised that most of them looked like lackadaisical Indian Government officials with pot bellies and careless attitudes about them but by this time, this was hardly an annoyance to me. I walked in, found my seat, was actually (believe it or not) helped by one of the guys to get my bag in the overhead cabin before I sat down, fastened my seat belt - totally relieved that this was not going to be nearly as bad as I had imagined.
Again no unforeseen delays - at right abouyt 8:30 pm, the doors closed, we pushed back, rolled out, and tore into the night sky. All I really wanted to do was get a good night’s rest. And some chow. Here’s where I think Air India is absolutely miles ahead of most other airplanes. Food. TONS of it. I have never been in an airline where food has been doled out in such regular intervals. And needless to say good ol’ desi food, the likes of which cannot be found on ANY OTHER airline. As I munched through my pulao and sabji and washed it down with a post dinner shot of Jack Daniels, everything that everyone had cautioned me about slowly but surely vanished out of my head. Here I was - living the experience, enjoying it and that’s all that mattered. Of course, being that I was seated at an exit seat, I had all the leg room in the world. So I stretched myself and drifted off to la la land.
Enter Heathrow and we were herded out only minutes later to be herded back in to a waiting area at the gate. And in about 2 hours we were right back in the aircraft, I was back at my comfortable exit seat. The crew had changed. I was a bit apprehensive because I saw a few scary looking characters march in to the aircraft. There were a few tussles between some co-passengers and the crew and for a moment I began to wonder if this was where my dream journey was coming to an end and the hell was going to begin! Thankfully NO. It only got better. The flight attendant for our zone in the flight was a girl who was no older than I, which was quite amazing considering Air India’s reputation for hiring ancient-looking air hostesses. Needless to say the in flight service from Heathrow to Mumbai was fabulous. The headset miraculously started working better and the food was excellent and despite the myriad of smells coming from the rest room that was directly adjacent to my seat I was having a pretty good time. For most of the journey, ms young flight attendant would stop by and sit at the takeoff/landing station directly in front of me and we would talk about all kinds of stuff. In what seemed like hardly any time, we were ready to land in Mumbai and I was actually NOT looking forward to it!
And finally we got to Mumbai at right about the estimated arrival time. No unforeseen delays. No haggard flight attendants. No missed flights. In Mumbai I had a connector to Chennai at 2:30 am in the morning, an ungodly hour by my watch but then with the time lag kicking in I was fine. There was a small 45 minute delay here which I realized was due to the sloppiness of the Mumbai Airport Authority but pretty soon I was airborne again, this time on my way from Mumbai to Chennai. And the saga of the great food continued! Mumbai to Chennai is an hour and 45 minutes by air. In the United States, a flight that long does not even qualify for inflight service. You’d be lucky if you got by with a beverage and those ridiculous insipid and nutritionally useless pretzels. But in Air India, even this short flight at the dead of the night had some nice in flight service. The flight attendants were very nice and when I woke up after a little power nap, one of them scurried over with some food and told me to eat because I looked exhausted! Nice touch. I was impressed.
When I finally got to Chennai, I was wore out from exhaustion and the time lag was getting to me big time but I was singing a different tune about Air India. Though Maharajah of the skies is a moniker that requires that Air India do maybe a shade more to live up to it, I certainly do not think Air India is the total disgrace that people have made it out to be. It is an economical airline to fly, and given that it is run by the Indian Government and the staff earn government wages I have no complaints as yet of any aspect of the airline. I flew Lufthansa just 6 months before this trip and in comparison I think I hit a real BARGAIN with this trip. Except for the trip time and the layovers, I think Air India scored on all fronts over Lufthansa. If the airline gets funded just a little more, Air India certainly has the potential to reclaim its spot as the King of the skies.