Air India Sucks

Tuesday, Jan 03, 2006 : Shangai, China

Today was a long boring "kill time" day. Our flight to India is at 1 am so we spent the day wandering around shopping malls and local bars. Man that was so damn boring. Probably the only decent place was the "Cotton Club" where there was a live jazz band playing. I ended up talking with this black musician from the US. He was a stylish guy who spoke fluent Mandarin & English. Gave us a good heads up on how to find out what was going on in the city. Gave us a copy of "That's Shanghai" which is equivalent to the SF Guardian in terms of trying to find out the latest and greatest in bars/events.

Air India
This is the worst airline I've ever been on.

1. First thisairline arrives 2 hours late. Then they take their time getting the plane ready. In the US, the crews do things in parallel but on Air India does things 1 at a time. Add fuel. Stop. Add Cargo. Stop. Load some baggage. Stop.

2. The customers are pissed off. Easter China Airlines run the gates for Air India. A near riot breaks out as customers are irritated by the delay. This British young guy spends the next 1/2 hour yelling at the poor Chinese staff. The chicks don't speak English well causing the guy to yell louder & start pushing people around. After awhile I get irritated and had a talk with the Brit to calm him down. I guess speaking w/ an English speaker worked and he calms down a bit. He does have a case though as the worst thing to do is to not tell the customers what's going on.

3. After I left to take a rest, I see a new crowd forming. The Brit is at it again, demanding to know why Air India people are taking so long. The angry Chinese people join in, basically overwhelming the staff. Fortunately a bilingual woman calms everybody down and helps the e. China staff control the situation. The customers are pissed off because they have no where to complain. The staff doesn't care. All request & complaints over the phone to the Air India staff are ignored (or worse put on hold). The irate customers then ask the e. China to complain to the Air India staff on board but those bastards refuse to come out of the plane to explain the situation.

Layover in Bangkok
We have a layover in Bangkok. The last 1/2 of the flight was highlighted by a crying baby who just won't stop.

We are not allowed to deplane in Bangkok, yet the cleaning crew still has a job to do. It's complete chaos with crews changing shifts, crews cleaning the plane around passengers. What a mess.

Thanks -> Source