How I faced my worst international flying experience with Air India

The Mumbai to Melbourne flight has the dubious distinction of being my worst international flying experience ever.

BHPian extreme_torque recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Recently flew Air India from Melbourne to Delhi and the Delhi to Melbourne via Mumbai and it was possibly the worst experience I have ever had on an international flight. The previous worse was Sri Lankan airlines but it was mostly due to a long 3 hour flight delay and Colombo being less of an airport but more of a glorified train station. The flying experience was pretty okay and the stuff inside the aircraft was working properly and the food and the general presentation was quote okay too.

Coming back to Air India, I had high hopes given they have been acquired by Tata and it had been a reasonably long time since the acquisition. The Melbourne to Delhi flight had non working infotainment screens and not just mine. None of screens in my row were working and it was the same story in most rows. If I were to hazard a guess, more than 70% of the screens were not working. And this is on a 12.5 hour long haul direct flight mind you. Fortunately I was well prepared for such an eventuality and had movies downloaded via Netflix on my iPad. The seats had decent legroom but the foot stand was missing on my seat and a lot of other seats too. The food and overall service was pretty average as well and they dont serve alcohol/wine after taking off even if you ask for it. Its only in between the meals half way into the flight.

If you think this was bad, Delhi to Melbourne was worse. It started well though. The domestic flight from Delhi to Mumbai was great - the plane was clean and smelled nice, the food was pretty great as well and all the infotainment screens were working. Surely the international route would be the same if not better, or so I thought. The Mumbai to Melbourne flight has the dubious distinction of being my worst international flying experience ever - the seats were worn right down to the nub, the foot stands were missing again, instead of 70%, it was more like 90% of the infotainment screens werent working, the plan smelled bad and 3 of the toilets were out of order - this is on a long haul direct international flight mind you. I cannot fathom how they think it is okay to provide such a terrible experience on an international long haul flight. Tata should be ashamed of themselves. I am NOT flying Air India ever again, even if they offer me the cheapest price possible on a flight.

Was on twitter/X after my experience and chanced upon this lady complaining about the same flight as well.

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