Air India: Disappointing Customers in Every Possible Way

  I am here in the waiting room at Indira Gandhi Airport, New Delhi, waiting for my next Air India flight to Kolkata, awake since the last 27 hours and almost finished 3 large cups of Americano. Well, Air India always seems to disappoint me and it never changes. I have flew with Air India about four times and my experience has always been disappointing, troubled and angered.

      Almost every time I flew with Air India, the flight seems to be delayed. Just a year ago when I was transiting via Mumbai to Muscat, a delay in the flight from Kolkata, made me nearly miss my Air India flight to Muscat by minutes. Let me just talk about my case right now. I flew last night from Muscat, which was supposed to take off at 11pm but because of a delay it flew at 12.15am making me wait. Okay that’s not much time. When I landed in New Delhi, it was almost 5.30 am and then I was really worried. My next flight to Kolkata via Air India boarded at 6.30am so I had only an hour to go through immigrations, customs, domestic airport transfer, check-in and boarding and one hour seemed really less. Still, literally running from the flight, rushing in the queues and madly running in the airport I rushed and reached the domestic terminal at 6.30 am. Then, ta-da the flight is delayed to 8.30 am. I have not slept the entire night and then now I have to spend another two hours waiting. That’s not it, after waiting for some time, I hear the announcement that the flight has been delayed to 9.30 am and may get even more delayed and would be informed so I have nothing to do, dead tired and sleepy, in the airport with my laptop, typing this.

     Ok lets not just talk about flight delays. I am a hospitality major graduate and have been working in the hospitality industry so I know what it means but I suppose Air India staffs know nothing about hospitality. I am not placing my views because of one incident but every incident that I have experienced with Air India which makes me give this conclusion. I still remember it was my first flight in Air India and I had just boarded the flight. The airhostesses weren’t like the young beautiful ones that we usually see, but well age is just a number so I didn’t give much of a big deal to it and sat down in my seat. I was welcomed by angry looking airhostesses who didn’t have a single sign of smile in their faces and this happened every time I am in an Air India flight. You never see a friendly, smiling airhostess in Air India but angry looking faces that reminds me of the stern looking headmistress from back in my school.  I still remember once a man came out of the flight toilet and didn’t shut the door and then an airhostess came out shouting, ‘Hello Mr. why didn’t you shut the door? This is a flight, not your house!’. That was really rude. I mean just today I heard an airhostess shouting at a passenger saying, ‘Hurry up! Even I need to go home. I have been working since last night and I am tired.’ Seriously? Doesn’t the so called the Indian government owned airline have trainings for hospitality and customer service to their staffs? I have heard so many negative comments used by the staffs on-board and not a single positive moment.

     Let’s not talk about in-flight services. The food totally sucks. Like today in an International flight, I was serviced a small can of beer and when I asked for another one, the airhostess pretended not to hear me, even when I called her like thrice. The food was terrible, especially in an International flight that I didn’t eat it. There was rice, a little dal with it and 2 small chunks of chicken, a slice of bread and small chunks of cucumber and tomatoes for salad. The seats was a little old and torn and the television entertainment was terrible with only two working channels, with one broadcasting a 15 year old Bollywood movie, Hum Saath Saath Hai and another broadcasting an English documentary. Plus, none of the passenger were provided with ear phones and most earphone plugs didn’t work as well.

    So next time I book my flight, I’ll make sure I pay a little more but not book a ticket with Air India and I suppose there are many people who feels the same way.