[Vikash Kumawat]

BCCI, the richest cricket board in the world, they announced a huge 125 Crores of price money for the T20 World Cup winners, but the irony is that they couldn't arrange a chartered flight for the players, they had to convert a regular aeroplane into chartered aeroplane which had to go to Delhi from Newark but after the orders of AI or BCCI, they left the passengers stranded on airport, who had to go to Delhi, and headed to Barbados.
There are many private airlines which provide luxury aeroplanes to VIPs but don't know why they couldn't get one ?
Passengers will get refund for sure but what about their time and their emergencies.
Our govt need to promote other sports as well, last month Qatar defeated Indian football team in 2nd round of qualification for 2026 FIFA World Cup, the referee gave a controversial decision and we lost, but not even a single politician posted about it on X ( Twitter). I am not a fan of football or hater of cricket, we just need to focus on every sports, no matter its ICC, FIFA or Olympics. Like we did when Neeraj Chopra won Gold Medal in Olympics.

[PPS]

Originally Posted by dust-n-bones

Teams of course do charters all the time in tournaments, but none of those charters are Air India.

I'm sure there's a good reason for it. I've definitely seen Team India travel by Indigo & GoAir before domestically. I remember while touring South Africa they chartered an Air Seychelles A320 from Mumbai!

Originally Posted by Vikash Kumawat

but the irony is that they couldn't arrange a chartered flight for the players, they had to convert a regular aeroplane into chartered aeroplane after the orders of AI or BCCI,

I'm not sure how easy or difficult it is to charter a Boeing 777 or a Dreamliner at the last minute! I believe hiring a private jet which seats less than 10 people would be far easier at the last minute.

There are many private airlines which provide luxury aeroplanes to VIPs but don't know why they couldn't get one ?

Surely BCCI exhausted all options before choosing AI! Recently Ambani's hired an Airbus A340 Charter to fly celebrities to Italy for their pre-wedding celebration. 2yrs back Isha Ambani chartered a Qatar Airways 777 from LA to Mumbai. I guess these have to be planned many days if not weeks in advance.

[solaris007]

I just wonder if things would have played out differently if Team India had lost the final or even better - if they got knocked out early and were in this same situation.

Would AI have dared to inconvenience the rightful ticket holders and divert it for the charter flight?

Humour me this alternate scenario - would any other flagship carrier Emirates/Singapore Airlines/Lufthansa/British Airways have done the same? Would they have rerouted their flight to charter their home winning football/cricket team? Imagine the furore in the home country.

You can change the management and ownership but you will never take the India out of Air India and thus never become the flagship carrier our country deserves.

[Hayek]

Air India claim that they offered all passengers on the EWR DEL flight alternate routings - either on their JFK DEL flight or through some other alternative (apart from Air India, United flies EWR DEL and American flies JFK DEL). Don’t see what the fuss is about if alternatives were provided. Do we have any direct feedback from a passenger who was left stranded in New York?

[solaris007]

Originally Posted by Hayek

Air India claim that they offered all passengers on the EWR DEL flight alternate routings - either on their JFK DEL flight or through some other alternative (apart from Air India, United flies EWR DEL and American flies JFK DEL). Don’t see what the fuss is about if alternatives were provided. Do we have any direct feedback from a passenger who was left stranded in New York?

Sir, I think that is missing the point. If they had offered alternate routings because the flight was inoperable - fair enough as that happens in aviation sometimes. They diverted a working, regularly scheduled commercial flight in favour of VIP passengers at the expense of regular ticketed passengers.

Just because they offered alternate routings to the booked passengers does not make the situation right. We are yet to find out the true extent of their inconvenience but what AI has effectively demonstrated through their actions is that VVIPs (the ICT) have priority over regular ticket holders (the common folk).

Also, just wanted to add a small tidbit from personal experience. Going from the Newark airport to JFK can take up to 2 hours especially during peak traffic - so there is that.

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by Hayek

Air India claim that they offered all passengers on the EWR DEL flight alternate routings - either on their JFK DEL flight or through some other alternative (apart from Air India, United flies EWR DEL and American flies JFK DEL). Don’t see what the fuss is about if alternatives were provided. Do we have any direct feedback from a passenger who was left stranded in New York?

Air India's statements are debatable.

On social media, some passengers alleged that Air India’s claims of providing an alternate flight were false. “Air India is lying. I am one of the affected passengers and i was not offered any alternative to travel on partner airlines," said Ankur Verma in a post on X.

He added: “So Air India cancelled my flight AI-106 (2 July) today and sent no information through phone, email, or any channel. I got to know about it when i was checking flight status before leaving for airport. No info. on refund as well. Pathetic."

“Air India is lying. I am one of the affected passengers and i was not offered any alternative to travel on partner airlines," wrote Ankur Verma.

Another passenger, Ajay Awtaney, complained about a last-minute flight cancellation and posted a screenshot of his cancelled Delhi-bound flight ticket on X.

Source and Link: https://www.news18.com/cricket/dgca-...t-8953724.html

[harishpr]

I’m sure the top management at AI must have been under extreme pressure from the Babus to accommodate this circus . Diverting a scheduled flight for the sake of bringing home a World Cup winning team is a disaster for many paid passengers. I too would take AI often (with very low expectations) and overlooked their horrible inflight service with broken seats. Just a year ago, I was on AI flight to SF and the seat allotted to me had a broken headrest. There was no alternate seat made available as it was a fully booked flight. I think any passenger in any class shouldn’t face this issue affecting 16 hours of non stop flight experience. I couldn’t sleep nor even sit properly. Imagine my state of mind with a heavy neck and headache throughout. So much for thinking to keep the money floating within the country. Ofcourse, the staff were extremely apologetic and embarrassed. That’s it, I junked taking AI ever again.
I can only feel sorry for the state of all those paid passengers who were left stranded and missed several life events.
BCCI has enough money to even buy a Dreamliner and maintain it for such circus. Don’t put a taxpayer in such difficult condition.

[NomadSK]

I have a very simple opinion on this, if one of you would have been stranded at NYC because of flight being diverted, how would your reaction be ?

1) If you would be cool about it - then Gods should get preferential treatment. And what BCCI and AI did is perfectly fine.

2) If you would be furious about it - then the ones affected person / media should raise the voice. But who would listen to a commoner !!

Just keep yourself in those footsteps. Unfortunately I come in 2nd category, we can very well say World Cup winning team among what 8 nations?, proud moment, blah blah, but those stranded people at NYC were human beings too as much as the stuck demigods on the island.

Let BCCI manage how they want to evacuate the players but definitely not at the cost of commoners. I don’t mind them having a “cast away” situation. My time and priorities are as valuable as theirs.

[fhdowntheline]

Originally Posted by harishpr

I’m sure the top management at AI must have been under extreme pressure from the Babus to accommodate this circus .
BCCI has enough money to even buy a Dreamliner and maintain it for such circus. Don’t put a taxpayer in such difficult condition.

Totally agree. Air India probably should have refused the request. BCCI could have hired a couple of biz-jets. Quite frankly, what's the big deal about this victory ? Cricket is a great game, no doubt. But no one outside of 3-4 countries will even register this event as a footnote in their regular media. I can understand if India won the Football world cup or even reached the semis. Because you are competing against the rest of the globe, basically. But cricket is within a coterie of only half a dozen "professionally serious" teams. It really does not warrant such ecstatic scenes that are being witnessed.
PS - will the Indian Olympics Association hire a commercial mainliner to ferry back our Olympics squad if they win about 10 medals in Paris this year ? Do our atheletes not deserve this equally ?

[Doonite]

No wonder that VIP Raj is still so prevalent in our country. You have people in this very thread trying justify this decision of Air India!

How is the value of life of any Indian citizen less than any cricketer or athlete? The non-existent laws in our country are non-existent for a reason, so that the rich and influential can do whatever they want at the cost of your average citizen.

I for one, would be absolutely furious if this happened to me. While traveling between countries, a delay of couple of hours can completely derail your plans, forget two days. It's absolutely inexcusable what Air India did and even more so trying to justify it with pseudo nationalism / patriotism ?!

Fun fact: I have not seen a single VIP vehicle in Sydney in almost 2 years of living here. Literally none, and I travel within the City 6 days a week. Whereas, living in Dehradun all my life, I used to be harassed on the road by a VIP vehicle almost everyday (in the past few years) before moving.

[L8ButV8]

Air India chose this marketing moment to get free press. They inconvenienced and burned hundreds of real customers in the process— what a stupid move. Sadly, this style of management seems to be prevalent in the new Air India, and it’s even worse than what it was earlier.

Originally Posted by Hayek

Air India claim that they offered all passengers on the EWR DEL flight alternate routings - either on their JFK DEL flight or through some other alternative (apart from Air India, United flies EWR DEL and American flies JFK DEL). Don’t see what the fuss is about if alternatives were provided. Do we have any direct feedback from a passenger who was left stranded in New York?

I have been loyal to AI from 2018 until early this year when I moved on. Reason being— my last 3 US to India flights (Feb, March, May this year) were each delayed or canceled. These delays are now very common on their us- India sector. Each time they rebooked me on a totally inconvenient flight leaving days later. The phone support is outsourced and useless, and the red tape got on my nerves. Each time I had to write to management to get basic help to get a convenient flight. Getting rebooked is worthless, if the new flight is days away, has terrible layovers and you are depending on the schedule.

On another note— the flights used for US to India are all ex delta. It has industry leading business class seats— a full private cabin— and the flights are in good shape generally. Far cry from the old, broken 777s which are sadly still in use on other sectors. ICT traveled in solid comfort.

That said the food is bad, movie selection is weak, staff seem inexperienced. I stuck with them for so many years only due to the non stop US- India flights & fantastic landing/departure timings (a hangover of the past— they had access to the best landing spots).

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

It is time for Campbell Wilson to go home.

Why blame Campbell? We all know whose vanity project this was. I used to be a big fan of the man himself, but his decisions over the last half-decade have been atrocious. His insistence on keeping at this foolish airline fantasy, coupled with the Tata group's legendary parsimony when it comes to paying for quality, is a sure fire recipe for disaster.

The last time I flew AI internationally, they were still GoI, and though the 777's seats were rickety, the service was charming and genuinely warm. Now I'm happy to settle for the ME3's corporatised smiles even at a higher price point. The only time I might consider AI would be life-or-death, though going by how they reroute aircraft, it will probably end up being death.

[V.Narayan]

This conversation has got derailed IMHO on issues of whether the players and BCCI honchos deserved this special treatment or not; whether paying passengers should be asked to take one on the chin for the nation or not; whether the BCCI as the country's largest {financially speaking} non-tax paying entity deserves special flying privileges or not etc.*

Fact is a group of well heeled potential passengers backed by a rather rich organization needed a charter flight from Barbados to New Delhi/Mumbai. That's all. Let's assume the number to be moved was some figure between 50 and 150 {cricket fans can fine tune this number}. The US is the world's largest aviation charter market. It is about 50% of the world market give or take a little. It would take a well positioned aviation charter firm about 72 hours to confirm a booking of a plane(s) to ship 50 to 150 passengers out if price is not a big issue. It would require some foot work and effort to get done but it can be done. Given the short notice the price per seat would be at a premium. Sports teams in the Americas all with the supporting cast travel by charters all the time. Given the short notice a wide body would have probably not been possible to book for a non-stop flight. But a narrow body like a A320 or B737-700, which would need one refueling stop, would be very possible to book. If only 15 odd players needed to be shifted then 2 Gulfstream 650ER/700/800 family of aircraft could do it non-stop with all 11 to 15 players in business class style seats.

Just sharing these facts to lay out the perspective that diverting a scheduled Air India flight was not the only option. Just within my circle of close business associates I can think of 2 people/firms who are only a WhatsApp away who could have booked this charter especially if it was only for the 11 to 15 players/key people. That is how simple this is.

* Cricket & Corruption is a subject of another thread!!! I won't muddy the waters here :-)

[Turbanator]

^^

Well said, perhaps they don’t have right calibre or they indeed had exhausted all options, we won’t know.


This reminds me of a fleet that AirCanada operates.

https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...harters.html#/

Not sure if this plane could have got our players home (range) and that was the reason or the board ignored Air Canada altogether.

Perhaps, Air India should invest in a such plane. There is a market definitely.

[thanixravindran]

Another one of Air India domestic incident. Sends message that flight is delayed with new timing and later changes back to closer time. How can people magically travel to Airport?

https://x.com/thekaipullai/status/1808690094766755982

After huge outcry in X, reasoning is hilarious that technical team sent messages during trouble shooting, offers peanuts and sugar coating the message to serve him again. And cancelled the return trip too as I guess it treated the onward trip as No show.