Sunday, October 15, 2006

Don't fly Air-India

I was shocked to read this report in 'THE HINDU' today on the sufferings of AIR-INDIA passengers in London, Heathrow after their plane was hit by a bird.

The flight was from New York to New Delhi via London.

The flight took-off from JFK on October-11 and several passengers (338) reached home on Sunday, October-15. Several passengers have complained about the 'Don't care' attitude of Air-India officials.
My questions to Air-India.
  • Wasn't there a replacement flight to take these passengers home?
  • What is the response from your boss?
  • 'Customer is right' should be the attitude. That is how businesses operate at an International level ( Situation might be different in India, where IMHO nobody really cares ).
  • Why is Air-India so careless about their business?
  • How many of these passengers will ever board another Air-India flight?
It has been a long time since I boarded an Air-India flight. Head strong stewards/stewardesses and crew and their 'Don't care' attitude towards passengers drove me away to other carriers.

This is only the icing on the cake.

4 comments:

Balaji S Rajan said...

I had the worst experience when I flew through them in June. I thought I should never fly through them, after seeing the worst service by the crew, as you had exactly said 'don't care attitude'. Since there was no other way, I travelled back to London through them fearing for the same service. On the contrary I had a wonderful service. I should mention that I have never had such a good service as I had during my return trip by Air-India. I even spoke to the crew and complimented them. I forgot their names. But the steward was a middle aged man, and was ably supported by another air-hostess who was really caring. I could not hide my feelings, and went and spoke to them about the service I had during my onward journey. They felt sorry for it. I realised that any organisation has a mixture of both kind of people. Sometimes we meet those kind of negative people and they make our life miserable. It is high time that such organisations should roll up their sleeves, and should do something on a warfoot measure to save the recognition and build a new image.

Ram Iyer said...

a couple of years ago, on an air-india flight to jeddah, saudi arabia:

passenger: Madame, we had requested for two vegetarian meals and we've been served non-vegetarian meals. Could you please change this?

hostess: Please wait sir, let me check.

(after a while)

hostess: I'm sorry, we've run out of vegetarian meals. I guess you'd have to manage with this.

passenger: Manage with this? what do you mean? its clearly mentioned in the pass, "veg meals".

hostess: Sir, you see, apart from the other items, only the rice is different, you can take the chicken and have the rice alone.

passenger: but we "specifically mentioned" veg. meals!

hostess: Sir, there's some confusion, and as a result we do not have sufficient veg meal packs.

passenger: oh, never mind! get me a juice!



@ NV - this is the height of it!

Queen said...

Actually this comment is for your blog abt a cartoon by Madan in vikadan(bcoz i didnt see a comments link there). I was abt to post it in my blog today, luckily i checked yours bf4 i did. :) wise ppl think alike. Am also a great fan of madan's cartoons and Vikadan publications.If you get a chance, read 'vanthargal vendrargal' by Madan. Wonderful book.

expertdabbler said...

sometimes they forget that they r in service industry. they think passenger aircraft is one mobile taluk office!!!

regarding the cartoon, we''ve come to expect this from madhan..

and i second queen "Vandhargal Vendraargal" is one very good book which i feel never got the recognition it deserves..
he wud've presented history in a very interesting manner!