London Heathrow to JFK 11th September 2005. Aircraft suffered a bird strike to one of the engines on landing at Heathrow. This was not communicated to any of the passengers waiting to board the aircraft for JFK. All passengers then board aircraft after 30 min delay- the announcement telling us that this was due to the cleaning of the aircraft. We then sit on aircraft for 90 mins a meal is provided ( which was awful ). Internals of aircraft very very ’’tired’’ extremely low-tech and very smelly. Then the first announcement about the birdstrike and advising us that flight now cancelled ! we will have to ’’de-plane’’. Bounced to a Vigin Atlantic Flight 3 hours later. Finally made it to JFK six hours late. Air India had not bothered to transfer any of the baggage from their aircraft to the Virgin flight despite having over 3 hours to do so ! Return trip no problems, I did not check in any bags with them because original bag lost. If you have to fly Air India - good luck- otherwise I recommend Virgin Atlantic. Maybe more expensive but worth it !