Many people might have faced occasional hardships during their air travel (or any kind of travel). Rarely will every passenger will get everything wrong during a travel. The degree of torture increases exponentially with the amount of travelling time. And we had almost 12 hrs to experience the Air Indian Hospitality (or hostility?).
It all started when they cancelled the Singapore-Bangalore flight, AI445 due to shortage of staff. The message came to us on 13th (note the date) of June. We were booked into a Singapore – Chennai flight and a connection from Chennai to Bangalore. We had little time to think over it or take any action, as we were departing to Singapore the same night.
Five of us, Ravi, Anil PG, Madhura, Suzanne and myself reached the Chan Gi airport Singapore on 15th morning at 5.30 am (SGST). As expected, they took 17 minutes to do a group check-in for us. First shock came when they said there is no through check-in and we need to check-in again for domestic at Chennai.
Thanks to the shopping options at the airport, the time flew fast till we got into the aero bridge to board the 20 minute late flight. At the entry I saw two scary faces dressed like air hostesses talking to each other without bothering about the passengers boarding the flight. It looked like two sisters having a private conversation in a busy street. I hope they don’t treat the guests who visit their home also in the same manner.
To our glee, we got the seat near emergency exit – the only pleasant experience in the flight- and the leg space was spacious enough for two people to sleep. We settled down in our seats and found a day old news paper "News today" - Chennai edition. (They do not have any other edition). The first news item in the paper was a narrow escape by an Air India flight in Delhi while landing. This prompted me not to read the newspaper anymore. I saw PG seriously reading the newspaper and Madhura sitting in her praying posture while take off. I was not sure of her reason for praying. Was she praying for our safety after reading the news item, or because the most scary faced crew member was reading newspaper, sitting opposite to her? I am yet to check with her. Can be for both.
Once the flight took off, Madhura continued to do what she has been doing through out the trip. She is a blessed person who can sleep anywhere anytime. PG was still busy with the newspaper. I browsed through the 5 entertainment channels provided and decided to watch the Dilipkumar starrer “Dastaan”. Seat belt signs were off and the hostess continued to read the newspaper. She angrily got up when Suzanne pressed the help button to ask for a blanket. I think she is showing this attitude and frowning face because Air India haven’t have paid her salary for the last 3 months. No other reason for her to be angry with all of us. The attitude of the crew was pretty clear when I overheard one of the members talking to another over the intercom. The verbatim I heard was “ … ask him to go and complain to whoever he wants to…” I restlessly waited for breakfast as it was past 9.00 am . I peeped at the business class to check the status of breakfast and seeing no signs there too, decided to sleep off a bit, as I have seen the first one hour of “Dastaan” during my Bangalore-Singapore flight.
I woke up from my little nap when the familiar unpleasant smell of Bangalore municipality van struck. For a moment I thought I was having a bad dream. I looked around and sawwrinkles on usually peaceful and non fuzzy Suzanne’s face. To my horror I saw the scary faced one proceeding with the trolley to serve(?) breakfast. The way she asked me “veg or non-veg” reminded me of the LP school teacher who asks the kids to stop talking. They served ice cold croissant, two button dosas and two spoons of upma and 4 small pieces of papaya. The yogurt was stinging and tea they served tasted bad. I forgot the fact that we were having an international flight. After finishing this in one bite, Ravi and myself were hungry. We were planning to ask them for one more packet, but before that we heard her denying the passenger behind us a second serving. She reminded me of the ration shop owner in Kerala denying “Kerosine oil” to the customer ( of course, this use to happen 2 decades back). I decided to spend the rest ofthe time watching “Dastaan” & “Tom & Jerry”.
After 30minutes, I saw Ravi coming back from the rear of the flight with a depressed and frowning face. Incidentally, he happened to see an unusable toilet in the flight, as some passenger threw up all over it. Not sure if it was the act of a passenger in the previous flight to Singapore. ( Logic says its possible because of the quality of liquor they might have served). The surprising fact was that the hostesses were sitting close to the rest room, in the floor, and having their portion of the ration, unaffected by the smell. I am sure they all are having PG degrees in Chemistry. 5 years of learning in the Chemistry lab might have made their noses insensitive to any kind of odour.
At Chennai
After 4.5 hrs we reached Chennai. We got out of the flight and saw two airhostesses standing at the door. From their face I was sure that their purpose of standing there is to check if any passenger has taken any valuable ( ?) from the flight and not to say thanks for flying with them. Maybecause they were aware that we were forced to fly Air India and was not a conscious selection.
We could get our luggage in half an hour. The lock in my strolley and the rod use to pull the strolley were broken due to rough handling. I was still happy because I got my luggage back. We reached the customer service desk in ChennaiAirport to find if they can give us a comfortable retiring room to sleep. We were greeted by another frowning customer service person, who said “ You should ask the manager, not me”. When I first boarded the flight, I thought job reservation in Air India is only about 30-40% or so, but at Chennai I realized that it is 100%.The manager happily told Ravi – We can give you a“FREE LUNCH”. Obviously we were not looking for that. We wanted a comfortable place to sit and doze off the next 6.5 hours in hand. They denied us any such facility, though I saw that the Air India executive lounge was vacant. Air India asked us to go to Air India express and they returned us back to Air India. We understood that there is no one in the airport who is accountable and decided to accept our destiny. And we took the “Free lunch” coupon. I wanted to check my mails, but there was no Wi-Fi and they informed us that Wi-Fi is available once we pass security check. Any ways, there was no power point also to connect the laptop for 5 hrs. PG went outside to the waiting area and found a power point to connect his laptop. He is always resourceful.
After the "Free lunch", we proceeded for Baggage screening. Couple of us were carrying some liquor purchased at the duty free shops at Singapore and we got another shock when the baggage screening staff informed us that we won’t be able to carry any liquid in hand baggage. Another drama with the duty manager and finally we were forced to open the luggage and keep the bottles inside. Another 15 minutes for check-in as the inefficiency of staff at checking counter was uniform irrespective of the location. I took 5 baggage tags from the check-in clerk’s desk and I saw her immediately removing it from the desk and keeping it under! Was I trying to steal her of her only meal of the day ?
We passed the security check-in and took 5 minutes to find chairs to sit. I wanted to check some urgent mails and found that Wi-Fi was paid and not complimentary in ChennaiAirport. I decided to walk around the area and understood that the torture is not yet over. I saw an Air India kiosk reading “ Flight no. 519 to Kolkata will depart by 4.25pm” and an LCD display just above that reading “ Flight no.519 to Kochi will depart by 4.25pm”. I walked up to the man who was standing near the kiosk and asked
“Excuse me, can I clear a doubt with you? “
The reply came back immediately in Tamil ; “ Sollunga sir”
“ I have a boarding pass for flight no. 519, going to Bangalore. Your kiosk says 519 goes to Kolkata. The LCD TV display says 519 is going to Kochi. Where will I reach if I board this flight ? “
He was the most efficient Air India staff whom I saw in the trip. Within two minutes he found that 519 is going to Kochi via Bangalore and the mention of Kolkata in the kiosk was a typo error. He managed to correct that in another 5 minutes! Hats off to the young man.
When they announced boarding, we were so relieved, but only for a short while. We were boarded in to a non a/c airport transfer coach. Three of us entered the coach and two others were asked to wait for the next coach. They were not fortunate to enter the first ever airport coach used in India. I am sure the great JRD Tata must have travelled in this and was thrilled! If Ratan Tata sees this coach, he will definitely buy this and keep as a monument. Even though the door at the rear was not opening due to rust, I could manage to get a hanger to hold on to which had some portion of the rubber retained in it. I managed to not to get into a situation of taking a TT injection after reaching Bangalore. After 5 minutes in the heat, the coach took us to the airplane.
We reached Bangalore by 5.30pm and were not surprised when we saw that PG’s strolley handle was broken. I was not worried at all about my strolley as there was nothing left in it to break.
And we headed back to our respective homes to meet the eagerly waiting family members.
