Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Debon-Air India

It wasn't my first trip to the US. In fact the fifth, and the third one in the last 12 months. But there were two things about this that left me a bit anxious. One, it was my first stay away from India after being engaged and two, I was traveling by Air India.

The first one is a topic of another discussion and I cant really discuss it at a public forum without prior bilateral approval. So I will stick to the second one.

It didn't strike me at first when the news trickled that we are shifting from our usual preferred airline, Delta Air, to Air India. It was only when people (most of whom were not traveling) ran upto me to me trying to console me that i realised the gravity of the situation. It seems Air India doesnt really have an enviable track record of safety. And the fact that there was another mishap the same day didn't help my confidence much.

After all efforts to have the flight rescheduled back to Delta had failed, i (and the rest of my co-travellers) embraced the fact that we had go through this ordeal.

It helps to have low expectations. It prepares you for the worst and it pleasantly surprises when those expectations are exceeded. The latter is what happened with me as i embarked on my maiden Air India flight from Mumbai to Chicago.

Infrastructure

Contradictory to what I was warned about, the aircraft was quite clean and the legroom wasn't any less that that of Delta or Northwest-KLM (the other carrier which has had the privilege of flying me to the US). The flight took off quite comfortably and confidently from Mumbai and apart from a couple of bounces, that can be attributed to the poor weather at Chicago, the landing was quite graceful. There were no personal entertainment sets on the Boeing from Mumbai to Chicago but they were in place on the journey back. The variety in entertainment though was not as varied as that in Delta or NW/KLM.

Staff

I was asked to expect to be greeted by ladies in sparkling saarees, an artificial smile and patchy makeup trying to hide the pain of the grand old age. Everything apart from the sparkling saarees turned out to be false.

From DespAir India to DebonAir India

To be continued...