Delhi Terminal 3 with Air India.
The best terminal but the worst transit in the world?
As a travel writer and publisher specializing in the Himalayan region I travel out to India fairly frequently and for more than ten years have avoided Air India because of a reputation for poor service.
However, Indian friends had advised me that Air India had got better in recent years and there was now a fine new international terminal at Delhi , and so I recently traveled with Air India from London to Kathmandu and transited in Delhi .
The flight and service from London was fine. I had read a lot about the new Terminal 3 at Delhi and on arrival was duly impressed – that is until we hit the Transit Desk.
We had been issued with boarding cards for the Kathmandu flight in London and our baggage had been booked all the way through so in theory (or in any other international airport) it should be very straightforward – a quick security check and then straight through to the gate.
However this was Air India who took our boarding passes off us, made us all complete some hand written forms, and after over an hour of standing in lines, then re-issued us with identical boarding passes. We didn’t have time to sample any of the wonderful facilities in the new terminal as we spent all our time standing in queues!
Please note that this is only Air India – all other Indian airlines seem to be able to process their transit passengers in a few minutes.
A Nightmare Transit on the return.
We flew back from Kathmandu on the first day of the Dewauli Festival – in hindsight a big mistake. The flight was delayed by three hours however we were told that the London flight was also delayed so we should be able to make it.
There were 40 or so passengers in transit from Kathmandu to London and we duly headed for the Transit Desk in high hopes. There appeared to be no-one at the Transit Desk who knew anything and then finally with difficulty we discovered from the staff of other airlines that there was no prospect of us getting boarding passes because Air India simply had no staff on duty on the transit desk – presumably because of Dewauli.
Staff from the other airlines were helpful and said “Please kind sirs, we ask you to wait with patience whilst we expedite Air India staff”.
Our London flight left after two hours and finally a dejected Air India staff member turned up. Some four hours later we finally received our boarding passes for a flight the following morning.
Security Staff were patient and did their best to try to calm these justifiably angry international customers – the feelings of the airport staff perhaps expressed by one member who said to me “I am so ashamed that this is our National Airline”.
Travellers to Kathmandu tend to be an interesting lot and our group of 40 had a good mix of frequent flyers, mountaineers, journalists, travel writers and trekking leaders - I sat on the side and listened to their comments –
“Incredible!” “I have had a lot of bad airline service but this is truly abysmal”.
“Unbelievable – how can they treat customers like this?”
“Truly a scandal – how can you have such fine new terminal and such dreadful service?”
“Air India obviously believe that economy passengers are total sh..”
“Wait until I get home and on the computer – I’ll show them what sh.. is, and how it can hit the fan!”
Technology is a wonderful thing. I took a few photos of the crowded transit area, thirsty, hungry, angry and dejected passengers, the empty transit desk and apologetic looking airport employees.
Some transit passengers were already on their net books and iPhones – phoning their travel agents, posting to discussion forums and airline reviews. Others had their video cameras out and were filming for YouTube.
I sat on the side and wondered philosophically how many thousand ticket sales this transit furor was going to cost Air India and whether any manager in their bureaucratic organisation would be bothered.
I sadly doubt it and I think it’s hardly worth my time forwarding this email to them - but I will if only as a courtesy.
I am an international travel publisher, tour leader, lecturer and guide book writer.
My advice is simple “Never transit with Air India ”.
Peter Knowles, Rivers Publishing UK. 8th November 2010.