is this the beginning of the end of the carrier? nothing they do seems to work. they are now even grounding and parking their much-ballyhood 'air india express' planes: i saw two of them just sitting in trivandrum airport. i guess the decline in persian gulf traffic is killing them as it was their cash cow. besides, all the cash-rich gulf countries have their own, lavish airlines now: etihad, qatar, emirates, etc. and they do offer (yes, this is true) rather good service -- they seem to have hired random pretty young white women (usually blondes) as their flight attendants, and their planes are brand new, and they can afford to take a hit because they probably (at least most of them) get subsidized oil. but they do insist on showing you the direction of mecca on the overhead movie projectors, and if i am not mistaken they do even announce prayer times, although i have never actually observed people genuflecting all over the aisles on their rolled-up prayer mats. all this is a bit absurd in an era of air travel, although it made sense in the camel days until oil was discovered. i have flown on some of these airlines trivandrum to newark/jfk, and the connections are good with just one stop in dubai, kuwait, doha, etc. much less grief than the awful two-stop route via mumbai and london on air india.
mumbai and delhi are the crummiest airports around for international travel if you are connecting from somewhere else in india. bangalore and chennai are much better.
btw, i went to the new hyderabad airport, and it is positively stunning. compared to the bangalore airport, which, while nice, does not seem awesome.
2 comments:
you have missed the sadistic role of Indian government in running Air India to ground.
Air India has a culture of bad customer service, and sarkari ethics of work which means they get bribes to do the same work for which they were hired.
While currently air traffic is bad worldwide, the impending death of Air India has always been a matter of when and not if. Air India would already have been history had the indian government not pumped taxpayers' money to fly sarkari amla free or cheap.
you would *WISH* air india is gone.
It wont go gentle into the good night.
It will keep sucking thousands of crores of taxpayer monies to do nothing.
Oops -- I forgot, most of the government does the same.
my bad
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