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Air India: Frequent flyers share why they wouldn't choose the airline

19th June 2024, 10:09 by Ananth Iyer

I have sworn never to travel internationally with Air India, at least until Tata sort out their aircrafts' well-being and flight schedule.

BHPian victorwhiskey recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I recently travelled on AI flight from Delhi to Amritsar. My wife and 1.5 yrs old daughter was also flying with me. Here is my ordeal.

From the moment we boarded the aircraft, the AC was not working. Despite a faulty AC, boarding continued. We all felt uneasy including my daughter. When we all raised this point, we were told that aircraft is being refuelled along with other checks and once we gain engine momentum, AC will start working. During this time, my daughter started getting restless. After about 15 mins of sitting in the flight , AC miraculously started working. All this while we were still on ground.
The seats were loose, handrests were loose, fabric was quite old and no screens were working.
Aircraft smelled bad. Cleaning process could have been better.

We just waited for those 40 mins to pass and felt heavenly even when we landed at Amritsar in the month of May. The hot weather on ground was still a welcome relief than the interiors of the aircraft.

Here's what BHPian dileepcm had to say on the matter:

I cannot remember whether I shared this incident here or not, anyway, I think its still relevant. I travelled from Amsterdam to Delhi (and then to Kochi) in Aug 2023. Never in my life, I had seen such a filthy plane.
Besides the food (above average), everything else was just too bad. Not only that infotainment did not work but looked like it was broken for ages, seats were dirty, plane was not properly cleaned, toilets - not cleaned for ages - list goes on.
I understand that some of the planes they have are old, but does it mean that it needs to be dirty?
I guess pictures speak for my horrible experience. I now feel bad that I did not click more pictures.

Here's what BHPian MyLife_MyCar had to say on the matter:

I have sworn never to travel internationally with Air India, at least until Tata sort out their aircrafts' well-being and flight schedule.
Last year I, along with a colleague, had to travel to Cincinnati for a customer workshop. As Air India operates direct flight to Chicago, it felt like a good options as Cincinnati is close to Chicago.
My colleague was flying Hyderabad-New Delhi-Chicago and I was to board from New Delhi itself. The STD of the flight was 2:40am from New Delhi. I reached airport 3.5 hours in advance with my family accompanying me to the airport. On reaching the check-in counter, I was told that my flight is delayed and rescheduled for 9.30 am.
There was no prior email/sms notification from airline about the delay until this point. Even the flight information screens in the terminal were showing 2:40am as the departure time. I double checked with the staff at the counter and they said that the flight is indeed delayed and asked me to proceed to another counter for more information.
At this point, I called my wife who has already left the airport after dropping me off. I asked them to come back and pick me up from the airport. Meanwhile, I approached the other counter where Air India staff was dealing with this delay. Lot of restless passengers enquiring for alternatives but the staff was dead slow in providing any proper information.
I called up my colleague who had arrived by then from Hyderabad and was passing through the transit. I told her about the delay and asked her to check with the airline staff.
The real ordeal begins now. This delay meant that we were going to miss our connection from Chicago to Cincinnati. Hence, I must wait at the airport until the staff can reconfirm our connection on an alternative flight. Even after waiting and constant follow ups for 1 hour there was no confirmation from the airline staff. At this point, I again called up my wife, who was waiting outside, to go back home.
After almost 3 hours, Air India staff booked me and my colleague on a different connecting flight. While my colleague was provided a stay at the airport hotel, I was asked to go back home. I reached home at 3.30 am, tired and frustrated. Set the alarm for 5.30 am to reach airport between 6.30 - 7 am (remember the rescheduled time was 9.30 am).
After reaching back to the airport in the morning, I got another surprise that the flight was further delayed and will depart at 1.30 pm! Tired of all the drama from previous night and knowing that there is nothing that I can do, I just blamed myself for choosing Air India over other options. This further delay meant that my connection was going to be missed again
I was left at the mercy of Air India who assured us that they will book another connection by the time I reach there. I was left with no option but to trust their words and went to the lounge to kill another 3-4 hours. My colleague was lucky to have the airport hotel and was comfortably staying in the room.
Finally, there was no further delay and the boarding started (phew!). Rest of the flight was uneventful, of course, with non-working screens and okayish food.
We reached Chicago and at the gate we were met by a United airline staff who checked our boarding pass and told us to quickly go to their counter in a different terminal using the airport metro. We rushed there thinking that we were lucky to get another connection. But the truth was far from it.
On reaching the United airlines counter, they checked our boarding pass and said that they cannot find any booking in their system that our PNR seems to be booked for an American Airlines flight to Cincinnati leaving shortly. We again rushed to American Airlines counter (don't remember if it was in the same building or a different one). Luckily, they had our bookings and it was the last flight from Chicago to Cincinnati for the day.
We reached Cincinnati at night, but guess what! Our luggage didn't. Had to spend another couple of hours with American Airlines staff trying to locate the luggage. They were able to track our luggage back to Chicago airport where it did not got loaded to the connecting flight possibly due to confusion between United and American airlines with regards to our booking.
Fortunately, this was all happening on a Saturday and they said that we will get our luggage delivered to the hotel on Sunday. I was mentally preparing myself to buy new cloths and shoes if the luggage didn't arrive by Sunday evening.
On Sunday, entire morning was spent following up with the airline staff to ensure that our luggage in on the way. Finally it was delivered to us in the evening.
That was my experience with the Air India's international flight. No, it wasn't at this point when I decided not to fly Air India again. It was my return journey where flight was delayed again by 7 hours, but I don't have anymore energy left to berate Air India.
Hence, I will just conclude my post by saying that it was the return flight and its ordeals which made me swear to not fly Air India, not anytime soon!