Some people feel travelling by Indian national carrier Air India is comfortable and nationalistic. The government servants are forced to travel by Air India. They love it simply because they don't have to pay or it.
I generally travel by other low cost carriers like Indigo, Vistara or Spice Jet because I normally have to pay for my tickets, unless it is work related.
However, unfortunately I reserved Air India this time for my personal trip this time. And no guesses , I had a nightmarish time !
It started a day before my flight. I tried to check in through Air India mobile app and I was not surprised that it crashed every time I clicked on check in, the app would crash.
After wasting more than half an hour for a job, which I am able to accomplish on Indigo app in less than a minute, I failed to check in.
Scratching my head, I tried calling the customer care, which I was fortunate enough to connect after an hour. I at least could get my seats blocked.
Before I could celebrate my successful mission, I received a text from Air India that my connecting flight has been rescheduled. It meant I needed to change my first flight in order to be able to catch the other one.
Another nightmarish time started when I tried to call the customer care, again. Anyway, another flight was booked. However she said she would not be able to email me the new ticket but I can get it at the check in counter.
The customer care executive warned me to reach the airport two hour on advance because of this flight change. I, being a nervous traveller, followed her instruction. And she was right !
What I went through at the check in was hilarious, ridiculous or it can be termed irritating as well.
The Air India counters were at utter chaos, and it did not surprise me. The staff was giving stickers to every passenger to stick it on their bags after writing their name, address, phone number, email id etc etc.
People started following the instructions. They would peel the sticky paper, stick the sticker on to their bags and throw the peel anywhere on the floor. No one guided them and they kept littering the whole area. These stickers started to fall off by the time the luggage was put on the carrier.
There was confusion at its best.
Our turn came and the flight change was enough to baffle the young man sitting at the counter. After struggling for about 15-20 minutes, he had to call the floor manager 'Madame Anju' - a small-framed lady with a feisty temperament.
Throwing her problem over us, she asked the young man to give us the boarding pass for just one sector and go through fresh check in for the second sector, to which we put our foot down.
The normal practice is that when one books a long flight wih a break, one gets two boarding passes and the luggage is booked to the final destination. Air India wanted its passengers to suffer due to its competencies.
We stood for our rights and demanded two boarding passes. The struggle on their part continued. The customers behind us started feeling jittery and the manager was also called to rescue the young executive and the fiery lady.
Eventually, we were given the two boarding passes.
However, yet again Air India did not give me a chance to feel victorious. I got a text that my connecting flight has been rescheduled to its previous time, thus increasing my waiting time to 2 hours. We had to get up at 5 in the morning only because of this rescheduling and now once again we were back to square one.
So, this was the Maharaja (princely) experience for us in our very own Indian airlines Air India
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