Last week, I flew Air India once again, all the way to
Singapore. I had originally booked my flight from my hometown Pune to Chennai
and then from there to Singapore. A month later, Air India suddenly e-mailed to
me saying that Pune Chennai flight has been cancelled and is being replaced
with Pune- Hyderabad and Hyderabad-Chennai flights. I had no option but to take
this longer route. Fortunately, Air India did not charge me anything extra for
it and finally, I was at Pune airport all braced up for a long haul flight to Singapore,
consisting of two stop overs, which meant that I would have to go through three
security checks in all.
I was pleasantly surprised as the aircraft that flew me
from Pune to Hyderabad appeared to be Airbus 319, a new acquisition by the
airline. It had built in TV screens in front of all seats and all other paraphernalia.
However the TV screens were never switched on during the flight and I had to
resort to my trusted ipod shuffle for in- flight entertainment. The flight, I
must accept, turned out to be far better than what I was expecting.
After a halt at Hyderabad that got extended to about 4
hours, due to delayed next flight, I boarded another aircraft, which to my
dismay turned out to be old workhorse Airbus 320. These aircraft of 1980’s
vintage have been flying with Air India for more than 24 years. Our aircraft
was perhaps one of the oldest from the fleet as it showed the battle wounds of
its long flying career. I have flown in
these aircraft, 15 or 20 years back and knew that there was no question of
expecting superfluous things like in-flight entertainment and all that. The
interiors were shabby to put it mildly. The cabin announcements had accompanying
creepy sounds. The backrest of the seat that was directly ahead of me, had lost
all its control mechanisms and every time, the lady sitting on it moved, the
backrest also moved along with her. From the general state of affairs, I could
imagine the state in which the toilets would be and hesitated to use them.
Luckily the flight was of just an hour’s duration and my disinclination to
using them did not cause much discomfiture to me. As a saving grace and perhaps
the most important aspect of the flight, the aircraft even when so old, flew
beautifully and the skills of the pilot could be felt from landing and take-off.
After a halt of about 3 hours, I flew out again, now on
an international flight from Chennai to Singapore. I was bitterly disappointed,
when I entered the aircraft, which turned out to be Airbus 330, first
introduced in 1990’s. The aircraft, though still produced by Airbus, was again
from Air India’s aging fleet. Fortunately it turned out to be slightly better
than the earlier A320. The aircraft perhaps had that old flight entertainment system,
where screens drop down from the ceiling on which movies are screened. However,
the equipment must have been dysfunctional as there was no flight entertainment
available. I made just one visit to the loo and found it to be quite not worth
the visit. Again on this flight, the catering was quite nice and sumptuous.
Perhaps, Air India thinks that if they feed their customers well, everything
else would be tolerated by the flyers.
As we landed at Singapore, I had a feeling of relief because the flying was finally over. I asked myself, why did I choose Air India? The only answer I could find was that the flight timings were convenient and above all it was cheap.
Whatever may be my experience and feelings for having
flown Air India, they just fade in comparison with what flyers did experience
on an Air India- Delhi- Frankfurt flight- on the same day, when I flew in to
Singapore.
Air India’s Delhi – Frankfurt flight AI 121, takes off
from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on every day around 1: 35
PM. Air India has introduced its latest acquisition, Boeing 787 Dreamliner on this flight that lasts about 8 or 9 hours and can carry
214 passengers on board. Air India pampers the passengers on this flight with
two full meals, an evening snack and unlimited supply of beverages.
The readers can well imagine the kind of heavy use the
four toilets in the aircraft would be subjected to with this kind of feeding to
the passengers. Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft provide two toilets in the front
for business class passengers and two in the rear for economy class passengers.
The passengers flying on this flight on 31st
May 2014, discovered within hours that all the four toilets were completely
choked up as the flushes were not functional at all. The situation became so
bad that the pilot decided to abort the flight and return to New Delhi after
flying well over three hours.
Just imagine, what kind of problems and chaos, this
must have caused among the passengers, besides huge loss of operational costs
and image of the carrier. The passengers could not board another aircraft in
Delhi because the aircraft would have reached Frankfurt at night and landing at
Frankfurt airport at night is prohibited. Many passengers flying to US
destinations fly to Frankfurt to catch a flight to US later. It must have been
a nightmare for such passengers.
Air India says that the bad habit of Indian passengers
to throw anything they want to discard into the toilet is the reason behind
this. However, the airline knows about this habit of Indian passengers very
well as it has been flying them for many decades. Air India services technical
parts of their craft to acceptable levels. However, when it comes to
cleanliness and functionality of things inside passenger cabins, the maintenance
is far from satisfactory.
Once upon a time, Air India was considered as one of
the best airlines in the world. With the passage of time, came the interference
from Government and bureaucratic control of the airline. This has resulted in
this sorry state of affairs, where Air India finds itself into a group of
airlines that loses lots of taxpayer money and might well be classified as world’s
worst.
2nd June 2014
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