Boycott Air India
neverflyairindia.com . . . or . . . iHateAirIndia.com . . . or still trying to come up with a perfect suiting domain name that I can register for and publish to the world my hatred for Air India.
The past 4 days have been the most testing days of my life. We literally were put through hell by people at Air India. We initially thought we're being cheated or ill-treated by Air India but so many things went wrong in 4 days that we ended up cursing our ill-fate at the end of it all. Things were so bad that we thought maybe thats how God has it for us until we get to our final destination. It was like a Tragedy of Errors that was going on.
Jan 2, 07 - Mumbai
We were all packed up ready to go. Friends in the balcony, relatives in the living room, a similar scene that we witness each year when we're ready to end our vacation in India and fly back to US. We were hearing about the fog in Delhi for the past few days. We called up Air India several times that day and asked if the flight on 3rd morning would be on time. We were hoping to hear that the flight is delayed. But they would say the flight is on time.
Just when we were about to leave, my dad got a call on his cell phone saying that the flight has been delayed by 6 hours and the new time is 10.30 on 3rd morning. We were actually quite happy that they called us ahead of time saving us from going to the airport and waiting for more than 8 hours before being able to fly. We went off to sleep peacefully thinking that we'll go to the airport early morning and things would be all nice and fine.
Jan 3, 07 - Mumbai
Only close family came to see us off at the airport. We got into the airport, went through the security screening and stood in the line for baggage checkin. We had to ask around a lot before we could know which one is the line for AI 111 checkin.
It was taking rather long for the line to move forward. Niki started getting a little impatient while I was trying to maintain my cool. While we were still in line, we went to see our parents and told them that it's going to take a little longer and asked them to head back home.
We were starting to lose our patience in the line. The officials behind the counter were taking on an average 1/2 hour to issue 1 boarding pass. We thought that was completely ridiculous. There were 2 lines at that time. We saw people around us getting impatient as well.
When we were 3rd or 4th in line after having waited for almost 2 hours, we started hearing rumours that the flight AI 111 was full and that we would not be able to get a boarding pass for that flight. That was completely unbelievable.
There was this Air India Manager who people addressed as Sherry Sir who went around saying that LA Passengers need not worry. We will put you on a special flight IX201D that will take off at about 11.00 AM to Delhi. We were a little relieved. However, they said that passengers to Newark will have to get a flight the next morning. So they started getting restless and agitated.
Because of their agitation and restlessness, they were issued boarding passes to AI 111 and we were issued passed for IX201D. Again, it took them forever to issue us boarding passes.
Once we got the boarding passes, we passed through customs and went to the gate for a security check. The line at the gate for security check was huge. We were so hungry by this time that Niki ran and got a dirty sandwich for 100 Rs while I stood in line.
We cleared the security and went to gate 19 where our flight was supposed to take off from. They said that the new departure time was 1.30 PM. We were so sleepy that both Niki and I went off to sleep in the waiting area. I faintly remember that Munnabhai MBBS was being shown on a TV there. I could just hear the sounds.
When we woke up at about little past noon, we heard people saying that the flight had again been delayed and the new departure time would be 3.30 PM. We called up home and let people at home know about this new development.
We saw everybody waiting at the terminal going in a large group somewhere. We found out that they were being taken by Air India for lunch in a restaurant at the airport. We had to go out of security once again. There we heard people at the transfer desk shouting "AIR INDIA HAAI HAAI". Niki said in despair that I wouldn't mind joining those people in shouting slogans against Air India since we had waited so long and not flown yet.
While we were going up for lunch we saw that AI 111 was being taken off. That time we wished that we had fought with the people at the counter and got seats on AI 111 instead of just accepting IX201D boarding passes.
We went to the restaurant where the line for food was long! I asked Niki to just sit down while I waited in line to get a plate for food. There came a large group (about 250) of Jats, Sardaars and the restaurant was super crowded.
There was this Jatt guy who lost his cool over being asked for Rs 100 for a little bottle of water. He created hell over that. There was this another Jatt guy who cut the line and asked if anyone had a problem with the same. No one dared to say anything and he did as he pleased.
There was a chaos over bottled water, food and it almost felt like we were beggers in front of Air India.
We had the lunch (that was pretty bad) and then headed back for security checkin. I was waiting in line while Niki just went to the transfer desk to check something. She came back after about 10 minutes saying that we should not board this flight as we will miss the connection (AI 137) in Delhi.
I was super frustrated by this time. We dropped out of the line and went to the transfer desk. What happened for the next 10 hours was the WORST experience of my life. I had a taste of ineffiency, carelessness, arogance and all possible bad words for the Air India officials at the transfer desk.
I remember all their faces very distinctly. I get so angry remembering their faces that I can seriously line them up and shoot all of them to death.
There was this huge mob of Jats/Sardars who were being ill treated by Air India. They had a flight from Toronto to Amritsar but because of fog at Amritsar, they were flown directly to Mumbai. It seems on that day, there was no fog at either Amritsar or Delhi. They were a huge group of 250 so they were really loud and getting their voices heard.
But the Air India officials were so carefree that they just kept on giving baseless excuses to them saying that they do not have a flight or do not have the crew or do not have the pilots to take them to Amritsar.
We were just a group of 15 odd who were told that it would not make sense taking IX201D since we would miss the connection at delhi anyways. We were adamant at the beginning asking in vain to stop the AI 137 from flying out of Delhi till we got there.
There was this south indian officer who came to us and started talking in corporate style saying that there was no use to go to delhi. He assured us that he would take care of us by putting us on a flight to Newark next morning and then getting a connection from Newark to LAX.
The worst part about all the Air India officers was that they talked in a tone as if we had done something wrong. We realised that it would not make much sense in just losing our cool and shouting at them. We would have to work with them in their lethargic pace to get a solution and try to reach LA.
He assigned us an officer named Vijay who would help us getting seats on a flight to Newark and then an onward connection to LA. That Vijay, though helpful, was taking so much time in each step that we just kept on getting more and more frustrated.
He would take off from the transfer desk for an hour saying that he's gone to take care of the baggage and come back saying that he would have to go back again to the gate to take care of the baggage. It seems our baggage had been loaded on the IX201D flight which we were never going to take. So he had to run to the gate to avoid that from happening. It took him and some other people almost all evening just from preventing our luggage from being flown to Delhi by mistake.
He came back and started issuing us boarding passes. It was almost 6 in the evening when he started the process of issuing boarding passes (again 1/2 hour per person on an avg). He did that. We were threatening him to give us confirmed seats on our onward connection and told him that we would not leave him until he gave us all confirmed tickets to LA.
It took him another 3 hours to issue tickets to 11 people. The tickets were Flight Interruption Manifest or FIM that had hand written shit about our onward connection. At this point, we were at a stage where we couldn't trust Air India for anything they said. We were literally treating Vijay as a dog and forcing him to do stuff.
But the kind of cold blooded animals that they are, they don't get affected by anything at all. While this was going on, we also saw a bunch of passengers from Cochin who had missed their connections were also being issued tickets on this Newark Flight. We knew that because of us, passengers who come to the airport the next day will have to go through the same shit and will have to wait another day to get onto some flight.
So it was 9.00. We were both mentally and physically tired. Finally, we called home saying that we will be put up in Orchid for that night so that they could come see us.
It took them another 2 hours to get permission from the Customs to let us out of the airport. That wait was also frustrating. Finally, we got out of the airport and went to Orchid.
I guess that was the only good part of our 3 day journey. The room was good. We got to meet our family once again. We had a good midnight buffet. By this time, we had made friends with our co-passengers (or co-sufferers). We decided to meet early next morning so that we could stick together in whatever happened.
Jan 4, 07 - Mumbai
We went to the airport early in the morning to get our passports. Luckily, we got our passports and boarded the flight to Newark. I knew in the back of my mind that it would not be all easy once we got to Newark and that was true.
Jan 4, 07 - Newark
We got to Newark after a 19 hour flight that was late by 2 hours. We were supposed to reach at 4.40 in the evening and had an onward connection at 6.05 in the evening. We reached 2 hours late and definitely missed the connection.
We reached the transfer desk where there were completely irritated Mexican women getting us connecting tickets. We again fought a lot with them trying to get some or the other connecting flight to anywhere in Southern California for that night. But it was impossible. So after a lot of begging and pleading, we finally got connecting tickets to Santa Ana for next day morning.
We went to the Air India office to speak to the manager to get a letter that would allow us to take 32 kg bags without being charged extra by the domestic airlines. The manager was attending a flight so again we had to wait almost an hour.
The manager (Rita Shah) came and talked to us in a tone such that we are the ones who had done some mistake and told us that we would definitely be reimbursed by Air India if Contintental charged us extra.
We had no option but to listen to her. We took all our bags and went to the hotel. We had absolutely no help with our luggage and that sucked!
Jan 5, 07 - Newark
Again with all our luggage, we reached the airport and went to the Contintental Airlines counter. To our surprise (yet again), the Continental guy told us that there were no seats on the plane and that Air India had screwed up in the booking. I almost felt like crying at this point. They said that there was nothing they could do and we would have to talk to the guys at Air India in sorting out the matter.
We almost felt like prisoners of war who were being treated like shit. We took all our luggage and went to the Air India office on a different terminal. We found out that the office was closed and would not be open till late afternoon.
That was it!!! I had never been so frustrated ever in my life. I shouted out that AIR INDIA IS THE MOST F*****D UP AIRLINE IN THE WHOLE F****ING WORLD!!!
I called up my dad and asked him to get whatever contacts possible in Air India and just help us get home. The problem was that we had already missed a day's work and it looked like we woudl have to miss another day's work because of all the screw ups.
Niki was really tensed because it would be really difficult for her to explain the situation to her boss. Plus the frustration of not being able to get home and that everything was going wrong with us.
We went back to the the Continental counter on the different terminal and begged them to allow us on their flight to Santa Ana. They said that they were helpless.
So then Niki and I just sat outside their counter. I was on the phone with the Air India helpline where it took me several phone calls and each time about 20 minutes trying to explain to them our situation. Finally, they booked us 2 tickets from Continental to San Diego for afternoon 1.10.
We went to the Continental counter and they said that they would require a new FIM issued by Air India. Only then they could allow us on their flight. So we called some lady named Jayanti Devrajan whose contact we got from my dad. She was a little arogant in her tone and she said that I can send someone to the airport at 12 not any sooner. Even my employees need a break.
I just tried to explain to her our situation and that we had been in transit for about 70 hours now. And just asked her to have pity on us. Then we went back to the other terminal. By this time, both Niki and I were experts in carrying our luggage around on Newark Airport.
We waited at a cafe where we ate bagels and hot chocolate. Some of the people who work at the airport knew us by now. They would pass us and ask us if we had any luck. It felt kinda nice. I told Niki that we must watch the movie "Terminal" starring Tom Hanks.
I got a call on my cell phone at 11.50. It was an angel sent for us. He said that I am at the airport to issue you a ....even befor he could complete. I told him that i will be there in a minute. I rushed to the office with all the papers that I had. Niki followed soon with both carts of luggage.
He issued us a FIM and we rushed back to the other terminal with our luggage and fingers crossed. Again at the Continental terminal, the same guy (Anthony) who was helping us earlier.
Again, there was a little problem. He said you have 1 ticket with a seat and 1 without. Again little shock. He gave us 1 ticket with a seat and 1 standby and said that go to the gate. If there's availability, you might get through. But not sure.
We took whatever he gave us and just went to the gate. We willingly paid him extra for the luggage without asking any questions. We knew that we will not be reimbursed by Air India. But we just WANTED TO GET HOME a.k.a. WANTED TO BE LIBERATED FROM AIR INDIA.
All this while, my dad kept calling us. Their concern was completely justified. They were worried too. But they just kept keeping us at ease trying to console us and assuring us that everything will be OK.
We went to the gate. They said that we cannot assure you of seats on this plane. You might have to fly the evening flight. We again begged them to do whatever possible and give us seats. Finally in the next 5 minutes, they said we had seats. Even though seperate seats, we took them and just flew out of there.
Finally, after 70+ hours of torture and pain and ill treatment, we reached San Diego where we were picked up by Asheesh and got home a little over 48 hours after we were originally supposed to reach!!!
I want to say things like NEVER FLY AIR INDIA or BOYCOTT AIR INDIA. But then that will not help the cause. What we really want is Air India to truly depict a picture of developing India rather than an India that we would feel ashamed of. Let me know if you can think of something!
The past 4 days have been the most testing days of my life. We literally were put through hell by people at Air India. We initially thought we're being cheated or ill-treated by Air India but so many things went wrong in 4 days that we ended up cursing our ill-fate at the end of it all. Things were so bad that we thought maybe thats how God has it for us until we get to our final destination. It was like a Tragedy of Errors that was going on.
Jan 2, 07 - Mumbai
We were all packed up ready to go. Friends in the balcony, relatives in the living room, a similar scene that we witness each year when we're ready to end our vacation in India and fly back to US. We were hearing about the fog in Delhi for the past few days. We called up Air India several times that day and asked if the flight on 3rd morning would be on time. We were hoping to hear that the flight is delayed. But they would say the flight is on time.
Just when we were about to leave, my dad got a call on his cell phone saying that the flight has been delayed by 6 hours and the new time is 10.30 on 3rd morning. We were actually quite happy that they called us ahead of time saving us from going to the airport and waiting for more than 8 hours before being able to fly. We went off to sleep peacefully thinking that we'll go to the airport early morning and things would be all nice and fine.
Jan 3, 07 - Mumbai
Only close family came to see us off at the airport. We got into the airport, went through the security screening and stood in the line for baggage checkin. We had to ask around a lot before we could know which one is the line for AI 111 checkin.
It was taking rather long for the line to move forward. Niki started getting a little impatient while I was trying to maintain my cool. While we were still in line, we went to see our parents and told them that it's going to take a little longer and asked them to head back home.
We were starting to lose our patience in the line. The officials behind the counter were taking on an average 1/2 hour to issue 1 boarding pass. We thought that was completely ridiculous. There were 2 lines at that time. We saw people around us getting impatient as well.
When we were 3rd or 4th in line after having waited for almost 2 hours, we started hearing rumours that the flight AI 111 was full and that we would not be able to get a boarding pass for that flight. That was completely unbelievable.
There was this Air India Manager who people addressed as Sherry Sir who went around saying that LA Passengers need not worry. We will put you on a special flight IX201D that will take off at about 11.00 AM to Delhi. We were a little relieved. However, they said that passengers to Newark will have to get a flight the next morning. So they started getting restless and agitated.
Because of their agitation and restlessness, they were issued boarding passes to AI 111 and we were issued passed for IX201D. Again, it took them forever to issue us boarding passes.
Once we got the boarding passes, we passed through customs and went to the gate for a security check. The line at the gate for security check was huge. We were so hungry by this time that Niki ran and got a dirty sandwich for 100 Rs while I stood in line.
We cleared the security and went to gate 19 where our flight was supposed to take off from. They said that the new departure time was 1.30 PM. We were so sleepy that both Niki and I went off to sleep in the waiting area. I faintly remember that Munnabhai MBBS was being shown on a TV there. I could just hear the sounds.
When we woke up at about little past noon, we heard people saying that the flight had again been delayed and the new departure time would be 3.30 PM. We called up home and let people at home know about this new development.
We saw everybody waiting at the terminal going in a large group somewhere. We found out that they were being taken by Air India for lunch in a restaurant at the airport. We had to go out of security once again. There we heard people at the transfer desk shouting "AIR INDIA HAAI HAAI". Niki said in despair that I wouldn't mind joining those people in shouting slogans against Air India since we had waited so long and not flown yet.
While we were going up for lunch we saw that AI 111 was being taken off. That time we wished that we had fought with the people at the counter and got seats on AI 111 instead of just accepting IX201D boarding passes.
We went to the restaurant where the line for food was long! I asked Niki to just sit down while I waited in line to get a plate for food. There came a large group (about 250) of Jats, Sardaars and the restaurant was super crowded.
There was this Jatt guy who lost his cool over being asked for Rs 100 for a little bottle of water. He created hell over that. There was this another Jatt guy who cut the line and asked if anyone had a problem with the same. No one dared to say anything and he did as he pleased.
There was a chaos over bottled water, food and it almost felt like we were beggers in front of Air India.
We had the lunch (that was pretty bad) and then headed back for security checkin. I was waiting in line while Niki just went to the transfer desk to check something. She came back after about 10 minutes saying that we should not board this flight as we will miss the connection (AI 137) in Delhi.
I was super frustrated by this time. We dropped out of the line and went to the transfer desk. What happened for the next 10 hours was the WORST experience of my life. I had a taste of ineffiency, carelessness, arogance and all possible bad words for the Air India officials at the transfer desk.
I remember all their faces very distinctly. I get so angry remembering their faces that I can seriously line them up and shoot all of them to death.
There was this huge mob of Jats/Sardars who were being ill treated by Air India. They had a flight from Toronto to Amritsar but because of fog at Amritsar, they were flown directly to Mumbai. It seems on that day, there was no fog at either Amritsar or Delhi. They were a huge group of 250 so they were really loud and getting their voices heard.
But the Air India officials were so carefree that they just kept on giving baseless excuses to them saying that they do not have a flight or do not have the crew or do not have the pilots to take them to Amritsar.
We were just a group of 15 odd who were told that it would not make sense taking IX201D since we would miss the connection at delhi anyways. We were adamant at the beginning asking in vain to stop the AI 137 from flying out of Delhi till we got there.
There was this south indian officer who came to us and started talking in corporate style saying that there was no use to go to delhi. He assured us that he would take care of us by putting us on a flight to Newark next morning and then getting a connection from Newark to LAX.
The worst part about all the Air India officers was that they talked in a tone as if we had done something wrong. We realised that it would not make much sense in just losing our cool and shouting at them. We would have to work with them in their lethargic pace to get a solution and try to reach LA.
He assigned us an officer named Vijay who would help us getting seats on a flight to Newark and then an onward connection to LA. That Vijay, though helpful, was taking so much time in each step that we just kept on getting more and more frustrated.
He would take off from the transfer desk for an hour saying that he's gone to take care of the baggage and come back saying that he would have to go back again to the gate to take care of the baggage. It seems our baggage had been loaded on the IX201D flight which we were never going to take. So he had to run to the gate to avoid that from happening. It took him and some other people almost all evening just from preventing our luggage from being flown to Delhi by mistake.
He came back and started issuing us boarding passes. It was almost 6 in the evening when he started the process of issuing boarding passes (again 1/2 hour per person on an avg). He did that. We were threatening him to give us confirmed seats on our onward connection and told him that we would not leave him until he gave us all confirmed tickets to LA.
It took him another 3 hours to issue tickets to 11 people. The tickets were Flight Interruption Manifest or FIM that had hand written shit about our onward connection. At this point, we were at a stage where we couldn't trust Air India for anything they said. We were literally treating Vijay as a dog and forcing him to do stuff.
But the kind of cold blooded animals that they are, they don't get affected by anything at all. While this was going on, we also saw a bunch of passengers from Cochin who had missed their connections were also being issued tickets on this Newark Flight. We knew that because of us, passengers who come to the airport the next day will have to go through the same shit and will have to wait another day to get onto some flight.
So it was 9.00. We were both mentally and physically tired. Finally, we called home saying that we will be put up in Orchid for that night so that they could come see us.
It took them another 2 hours to get permission from the Customs to let us out of the airport. That wait was also frustrating. Finally, we got out of the airport and went to Orchid.
I guess that was the only good part of our 3 day journey. The room was good. We got to meet our family once again. We had a good midnight buffet. By this time, we had made friends with our co-passengers (or co-sufferers). We decided to meet early next morning so that we could stick together in whatever happened.
Jan 4, 07 - Mumbai
We went to the airport early in the morning to get our passports. Luckily, we got our passports and boarded the flight to Newark. I knew in the back of my mind that it would not be all easy once we got to Newark and that was true.
Jan 4, 07 - Newark
We got to Newark after a 19 hour flight that was late by 2 hours. We were supposed to reach at 4.40 in the evening and had an onward connection at 6.05 in the evening. We reached 2 hours late and definitely missed the connection.
We reached the transfer desk where there were completely irritated Mexican women getting us connecting tickets. We again fought a lot with them trying to get some or the other connecting flight to anywhere in Southern California for that night. But it was impossible. So after a lot of begging and pleading, we finally got connecting tickets to Santa Ana for next day morning.
We went to the Air India office to speak to the manager to get a letter that would allow us to take 32 kg bags without being charged extra by the domestic airlines. The manager was attending a flight so again we had to wait almost an hour.
The manager (Rita Shah) came and talked to us in a tone such that we are the ones who had done some mistake and told us that we would definitely be reimbursed by Air India if Contintental charged us extra.
We had no option but to listen to her. We took all our bags and went to the hotel. We had absolutely no help with our luggage and that sucked!
Jan 5, 07 - Newark
Again with all our luggage, we reached the airport and went to the Contintental Airlines counter. To our surprise (yet again), the Continental guy told us that there were no seats on the plane and that Air India had screwed up in the booking. I almost felt like crying at this point. They said that there was nothing they could do and we would have to talk to the guys at Air India in sorting out the matter.
We almost felt like prisoners of war who were being treated like shit. We took all our luggage and went to the Air India office on a different terminal. We found out that the office was closed and would not be open till late afternoon.
That was it!!! I had never been so frustrated ever in my life. I shouted out that AIR INDIA IS THE MOST F*****D UP AIRLINE IN THE WHOLE F****ING WORLD!!!
I called up my dad and asked him to get whatever contacts possible in Air India and just help us get home. The problem was that we had already missed a day's work and it looked like we woudl have to miss another day's work because of all the screw ups.
Niki was really tensed because it would be really difficult for her to explain the situation to her boss. Plus the frustration of not being able to get home and that everything was going wrong with us.
We went back to the the Continental counter on the different terminal and begged them to allow us on their flight to Santa Ana. They said that they were helpless.
So then Niki and I just sat outside their counter. I was on the phone with the Air India helpline where it took me several phone calls and each time about 20 minutes trying to explain to them our situation. Finally, they booked us 2 tickets from Continental to San Diego for afternoon 1.10.
We went to the Continental counter and they said that they would require a new FIM issued by Air India. Only then they could allow us on their flight. So we called some lady named Jayanti Devrajan whose contact we got from my dad. She was a little arogant in her tone and she said that I can send someone to the airport at 12 not any sooner. Even my employees need a break.
I just tried to explain to her our situation and that we had been in transit for about 70 hours now. And just asked her to have pity on us. Then we went back to the other terminal. By this time, both Niki and I were experts in carrying our luggage around on Newark Airport.
We waited at a cafe where we ate bagels and hot chocolate. Some of the people who work at the airport knew us by now. They would pass us and ask us if we had any luck. It felt kinda nice. I told Niki that we must watch the movie "Terminal" starring Tom Hanks.
I got a call on my cell phone at 11.50. It was an angel sent for us. He said that I am at the airport to issue you a ....even befor he could complete. I told him that i will be there in a minute. I rushed to the office with all the papers that I had. Niki followed soon with both carts of luggage.
He issued us a FIM and we rushed back to the other terminal with our luggage and fingers crossed. Again at the Continental terminal, the same guy (Anthony) who was helping us earlier.
Again, there was a little problem. He said you have 1 ticket with a seat and 1 without. Again little shock. He gave us 1 ticket with a seat and 1 standby and said that go to the gate. If there's availability, you might get through. But not sure.
We took whatever he gave us and just went to the gate. We willingly paid him extra for the luggage without asking any questions. We knew that we will not be reimbursed by Air India. But we just WANTED TO GET HOME a.k.a. WANTED TO BE LIBERATED FROM AIR INDIA.
All this while, my dad kept calling us. Their concern was completely justified. They were worried too. But they just kept keeping us at ease trying to console us and assuring us that everything will be OK.
We went to the gate. They said that we cannot assure you of seats on this plane. You might have to fly the evening flight. We again begged them to do whatever possible and give us seats. Finally in the next 5 minutes, they said we had seats. Even though seperate seats, we took them and just flew out of there.
Finally, after 70+ hours of torture and pain and ill treatment, we reached San Diego where we were picked up by Asheesh and got home a little over 48 hours after we were originally supposed to reach!!!
I want to say things like NEVER FLY AIR INDIA or BOYCOTT AIR INDIA. But then that will not help the cause. What we really want is Air India to truly depict a picture of developing India rather than an India that we would feel ashamed of. Let me know if you can think of something!
Comments
1.) Veggie meals…I don’t think so:
http://www.ethnicmedia.co.uk/Eastern_Eye/iframe_story.asp?NID=3411
2.) The general consensus:
http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/air_india.htm
3.) http://www.smartertravel.com/travel-advice/Zagat-ranks-best-worst.html?id=261210
I don't see anything wrong with boycotting Air India - I don't see why a sub-standard product or service should be used by consumers because of the affiliation of the provider (in this case, Air India) to India. This can be likened to the impractical (and outright harmful in some ways) "swadeshi movement" pre-Independence. The last 80 or so years have demonstrated that forcing someone (or yourself) to use an inferior service never works - and that the only way to induce improvement is to let the market forces (and not emotions, or attachment to one's country, or its products) rule. Its a romantic concept in theory, one we would all like to adhere to, but never really works in practice - for good reason.
- Shreyas
In my case we were stalled at LAX for over 1.5 days. They had overbooked the flight and things went wrong.
These guys are supremely incompetent at their work. No sense of customer case and no sense of professionalism.
I've since then NOT travelled air-india, even ready to pay more to avoid it.
If you need some constibution to host this story on boycottAirIndia.com or something, let me know. I'm up for it.
Now I wonder, why they went on strike ? If they had to become private, then they might have to "work" actually!
-Anand.
-ganesh
Again, there is nothing better than a boycott to fix a bad company.
Oh, btw, airindiasucks.com would be a good domain name and I seriously suggest you start one.
Good luck!
this site and I'm going to post your story there. Please let me know if that's alright. Will remove it if you request to do so. Also, if you can provide a pic of the boarding pass it will be helpful. Please refer to the website for more details.
Thanks,
Sarav
--Santhoshi
It was definitely one heck of a trip ...
Last I too traveled around the same time…31st Dec - A1120 - London – Ahmedabad - Mumbai.
The flight was delayed by two hours…and this was announced about 2-3 hours before scheduled departure…almost all the passengers were already at the airport and checking in or checked in by then…for those who had checked in had to spend the time waiting in the duty free area which was overcrowded … there was no air India representative at the helpdesk for assistance…then the gate number was put up …we all reached the gates and then for some reason there was a further delay without any communication….people were just waiting outside the gates… there weren’t enough chairs to seat all waiting at the gate...so, people started sitting on the floor…
Finally, instead of the 2 hour announced delay, by the time we took off it was almost 3+ hours late
As it was a London - Ahmedabad - Mumbai… there were many gujrati aged couples traveling alone… many on wheelchairs
The next day instead of landing in Ahmedabad first, the flight was diverted directly to Mumbai due to technical fault.
All the Ahmedabad passengers had to then wait in Mumbai until some flight arrangements could be done.
The flight which was scheduled to reach Ahmedabad at 5:45 am and reached only at 8pm…about 14 hours late….which is more than 1.5 times the flight duration!!...
Though things didn’t get as bad as for u two, it was pretty bad considering the age of most of the passengers who had particularly chosen this flight as it was a direct Ahmedabad!
The flight had a technical problem and it was an emergency landing in Mumbai…so, it made complete sense …but the main thing that irritated everyone was that proper information was not being given ..neither when the flight was delayed at Heathrow…nor at the Ahmedabad airport where friends/ relatives were waiting all day!!! They just don’t seem to realize that they are supposedly in the service industry!!
Related news article - http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=215628
One more “AI sucks” experience at - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/29064058.cms
- Pinky
Air India - National Airline - a National Shame
This is a absolutely true & horrifying experience that I just went through with our national airline - Air India. It was so traumatic for me that I couldn't
have imagined in my wildest dreams. I have heard of stray incidents of various
types happening with different people, just couldn't believe when ALL of those happened with me in 2 days. Here's my experience. I walk into the Mumbai
airport at 12.15 pm for a 14.55 pm flight to london. (AI 131). After about 40 minutes, AI counter representatives just start walking around and chatting
amongst themselves. Maybe 15-20 minutes after that, someone raises some noise about their behavior and then they come out open stating that the flight was
full and that the flight was overbooked. Now overbooking as AI puts it is a very common action that most airlines resort to, even in peak seasons such as the
one I was travelling in. To my outmost surprise, they had overbooked a flight of 210 passengers (they fly a Boeing 767 for this flight) by 40 odd passengers.
Absolutely ridiculous !!!. Thats when this whole saga of trauma began.
We fought with the AI officials to come up with a reason and tell us what they were gonna do for us. But they refused to budge and did not give any reasonable
explanation. After about 30 minutes of screaming and fighting the duty manager arrived at the scene and the very second statement he made was that we r going
to put you guys in a 5 star hotel. The next possible flight that they could put us on was AI 101 which would leave at 7.10 AM the next morning. They couldn't
arrange for any other flight citing that they were all full, but they did not confirm with anyone before making that bold statement, just because they wanted
to save the buck for AI. My case was a bit complicated cause I had to make it to the US the next day on a American Airlines (AA) flight. So they promised me
to rebook me on a different flight and also provide me a hotel accomodation in London since I wouldn't make it for my original flight. After that around 14.00
pm, there was a change of shifts, which meant a new duty manager was to arrive and be briefed about the situation. Some passengers like me, decided to take
the lead and explained him the situation. He promised us that he would take care of us and would assign a hotel and boarding passes ASAP. Before that he had
to head to a small meeting for 15 mins. That 15 mins, took him 2 hours and then he comes and states that out of great difficulty he could get us to the next
flight at 7.10 AM, which we should have always been given priority to board since we were bumped off our original flight. But he refused to check in our
luggage and give boarding passes, asking us to come to the airport some 6 hrs in advance. We refused and decided not to budge, and maybe after an hour he
agreed to check us in. Still no hotel and it was 5.00 pm. One of the fellow passengers lost his head since he was travelling with his 80 year old mom who was
struggling to sit through this trauma. Another family with an infant just wanted to know if they r going to get a hotel and still no action on AI's behalf.
Finally around 6.30 pm, they come out and say that they cannot find hotels for us and offer to put us up in the airport area, where they have some facilities.
Some of us went and checked the facilities. There were some beds with some dirty linen, no bathrooms, no TV's, no kind of entertainment and full of mosquitoes
which would definitely give you malaria before leaving india. One guy mentioned that he wouldn't even let his dog stay there in that room. Such were the
facilities offered to passengers who paid full fare, after being promised 5 star accomodation. Little did we know that this was a beginning of what we had to
go through. After that we all went to the duty managers office and sat there and he refused to give us priority. After forcing him to give us his attention
and forcing him to inform his seniors of our position, he negotiated with us. After about 2 hours of this, AI made another offer to us. Find a hotel on your
own and get us the bill tommorow and we'll reimburse you. The ceiling limit was set to Rs. 5000 / passenger or Rs. 7000/family, which is really a small amount
given the costs of hotels in mumbai. Anyways, we tried hard to negotiate with them to give us a reasonable limit since we would never get a decent hotel
around the airport for that kind of money. Sensing that we weren't making much progress with this issue with AI after an hour of debating and they still
looking or acting to look for hotels for us, some of us decided to take the offer and share rooms. To our surprise, AI said they would not give us cash and we
would have to produce a bill after paying it on our own. Some of the passengers had no indian currencies, some students have very limited credit card limits
which blocked them from taking this limit. So we again tried to negotiate, but with no success with the thick skinned inconsiderate AI people. Also at this
stage, AI managers told us that turn up at the aiport only around 6.30AM next morning since AI 101 is delayed to 8.00 pm. That would give us an additional 1
hour of sleep. By then the next shift came into work who again argued with us that every airline rebooks and they are justified with their hostile behavior
and actually gave us a hard time to even dispurse the mininal taxi costs to us. Finally, around 10.30 pm in the night after spending more than 10 hrs at the
airport, some of us decided to take a cab and give it a shot to look for a hotel on our own. Found one at around 12 in the nite and spend the next couple of
hrs trying to get some sleep.
Next morning when we got to the airport at 6.20 AM, we noticed the same story being repeated with the AI 101 passengers who were dumped thanks to us. Similar
shouts and screaming and determined AI officials fending off all allegations of mismanaging reservations. Infact funnily, the AI desk officials kept blaming
AI reservation ppl for messing things up and telling us that they couldn't do much about it since thats how its been since the past couple of years. One of
the AI officials mentioned that the whole overbooking saga was going on for the past 7-8 days, but surprisingly they still did not have hotels booked and they
just kept using their strategy to hold passengers in the airport until they got frustated and left on their own. Suddenly we get rushed stating that we were
delaying the flight. To our surprise the flight is stated to be on time. So we go thru immigration and then identify our luggages and finally make it to the
flight. It leaves as stated - i.e. at 8.15 AM. During the flight, I fell sick with the previous days food. The moment we landed, I was throwing up and had a
very hard time keeping myself hydrated. Go to the luggage claim area in london and after about 1 hour, AI official comes and says that they did not board some
20 passengers baggage. Guess what .... all the 20 ppl were from AI 131 flight. It was so ironic, that they did not board things like the old lady's wheel
chair. Can u imagine that ? After all this .... they do that. Also, with AI, something else we learnt is there is no compensation for your baggage if they do
not arrive with you. I tried to negotiate, but one of the AI london officials mentioned that they would not entertain any requests unless the luggage was lost
for more than 48 hrs. Nice !!!
Thot I was done and so I went to the AI customer service and asked for the 1 nite hotel stay that I was promised in bbay. AI flatly refused stating that their
responsibility ends in London. They do not care anything beyond that. Infact this one lady in the AI customer service was so rude and so insulting that I was
amused if this is what "Customer service" meant for AI. No other airline counter had such rude officials. I decided to wait and speak to the duty manager, who
also refused but after he heard my traumatic story asked me to stay there for a bit. This is like 3 hours since I landed in London still trying to get
something I was promised. Finally, he took pity on me and decided to give me a room for a nite and he was perhaps the only AI official who had backed his
words with some real action. I went to the hotel & crashed thinking I was done with AI for good ....I was dreaming .... yes, I was. Next morning, I reach
Gatwick and presented my booking details to AA to take my flight to the US. They see my booking and ask me for a paper ticket. AI did not give me any paper
ticket. They just gave me a piece of paper and thats it. The reservation was a no go and they asked me to buy a new 1 way ticket to Raleigh. At that stage, I
couldn't think of anything to do. But i remembered that my original booking was a refundable, changeable ticket. So AA looked up my old reservation and the
lady at the counter did some magic and I made it to the my flight to Raleigh. AA tried to trace my luggage, still no information and I am still waiting for it
after 40 hrs of my flight.
In this whole experience, the thing I was surprised (or rather not) was the sense of accountablity in the AI employees. Its a true government organization
where there is no accountablity and everyone is trying to push the buck onto someone else and run away from the responsiblities. I pity the old parents,
families with infants and foreigners who get screwed and swindled with this kind of treatment. The saddest part of my experience is the AI officials
behaviours and no sense of urgency to deal with our issues. It just seems to be a every day issue at AI and I personally noticed so many people losing their
heads at the AI counters. After this experience, I have decided that I am going to pay additional money and travel any other airline but AI. They simply do
not understand a passenger's or a paying customer's plight after making them go thru such hell. Not to mention how bad the AI website is to dig out any
details. A nation like India which is the world leader in IT, our national airline's website sucks and doesn't get me any reasonable information.I just felt
that after this experience I need to let every Indian whom I know in the US know about this. AI will not get off the hook this easy. They need to learn a
lesson and I am gonna put every effort in trying to do so. I have refrained intentionally from naming individual AI officials since I dont think that would
help cause I believe its an organizational issue and the attitude needs to change from the top to bottom, just changing some officials will not make this
airline any better.
So adios AI .... national airline .... my ass.
I was glad to see you & Niki yesterday and am happy that atleast you are back safe.
~ Nishant
Post your review here, it's read by hundreds of thousands: http://www.epinions.com/trvl-Airlines-Asia_Pacific-Air_India/display_~reviews
I went through something like this in 2006 when I reluctantly booked my tickets with them. I was able to get 400 dollars per ticket back by taking advantage of their crappy customer service and bureaucracy. They probably don't even know that I got the money back!
If you booked your ticket using your credit card, contact your cc company and tell them that you are disputing the charge by 400 dollars per ticket. Warsaw convention is an international agreement signed by the U.S. and many other countries including India. There is no specific language in this agreement that obligates the airline to compensate passengers in the event of a flight delay or flight cancellation.
Here is the law:
If the substitute transportation is scheduled to get you to your destination more than two hours later (four hours internationally), or if the airline does not make any substitute travel arrangements for you, the compensation doubles to a maximum of $400. Air India is so fucked up that they'll never respond to this to your credit card company and the cc company will refund you the $400 per ticket. it will eventually come out of AI account. It will be too late when they find out.
Here is some more info on the law: http://www.gonomad.com/traveldesk/0101/stjohn_airlinerights.html
Good luck
A rip of for the money you spens, Dont fly or buy any thing from a Indian company , they cheat and they dont give respect.