Air India as we all know today has shed all its past glory, its heritage / legacy and ranks itself as the most irresponsible airline around. Customer responsiveness is absolutely lacking. The ground staff in particular is arrogant, rude and clueless, all at the same time.
Only recently had a horrible time waiting endlessly at Mumbai airport for almost 6hours because the respective pilots along with the crew had run away upon reaching Mumbai from some other location and were non traceable. Their mobiles were switched off!. Could there be a better example of extreme callousness? Thankfully some other pilots / crew(assigned at the last minute) agreed to ferry us to our destination Delhi.
Air India also has a primitive form of frequent flyer program called FLYING RETURNS! However they have ensured that no one is able to use the miles to book tickets. This is a recent development. Whenever you try to redeem miles, it lands the user to a page that forces the user to log in as guest and not the frequent flyer. Thereby asking the passenger to book a ticket without using miles. Even the people manning the call centre is clueless about any deadline to fixing the issues. They say that they are checking KYC of customers and people are in queue. Apparently it is a smart way to force travellers from using their hard earned miles towards booking tickets during this peak travel season. Don’t see any other why they did not find a better time to check KYC of flyers etc. than now.
Last but not the least, with so many alternatives available, people who regularly fly wont wait for this once a great carrier to improve on professionalism(which does not mean cheating customers). People just move on. I surely will, would you?
Name: Sudeep Banerjee
Frequent Flyer No: 131954200
Total Miles(Unable to redeem):27, 572
P.S. KUDOS AIR INDIA .! At least "Aap ke achche din aa gaye. Apne Frequent Flyers Ko Bewakoof Bana Ke." You guys badly need privatization.