Last Lecture Series

Air India

On a recent trip to India, I had the privilege to fly Air India, the national carrier with world-wide connectivity. Although I firmly believe in no frills cheap airlines even for long distances, I was a bit skeptical about my maiden journey on Air India. I was not expecting a Maharaja treatment on the airline. Despite my preconceived notions, the journey was filled with a lot of surprises. However, I learned a couple of new things and that's what counts at the end. Here is my story. A day before I was scheduled to depart from LAX, I was 45-50 miles away from my primary residence with all my baggage stored at a friend's place in Torrance . I was happily completing some last minute shopping at Costco on a Friday evening and the cell phone rang. I picked up gazing at the number and there came the voice:

"Am I speaking to Mr. Akshay Grover?" I quickly said "yes" thinking it is yet another sales call that has started to show up on my cell phone. Then my legs started shaking when she said: "Sir, I am calling from Air India".

I started imagining that the flight must have been canceled or overbooked or there is some problem with my ticket. I was just getting nervous. I began thinking that my India trip seems shaky now. Eventually, she spoke that the flight has been delayed. Oh! What a sigh of relief? I asked "Just delayed, right?" She said "Yes sir". I retrieved my conscience. Yippie, I shall make it to India. I inquired about the delay, noted the details and hung up the phone. Just 3 hours delay, huh ! no big deal, I am OK with it as long as I reach India. I did not realize that this was just the beginning.

The next day was spent in utter chaos while I called Air India at least 25 times till evening to inquire if the phone call was real and the plane has actually been delayed. Alas, they did not have any updates online. We Indians have been writing software for all the multinationals, automating their inquiry/ response systems but when it comes to our national carrier, it still issues paper tickets, do not have updates online and the call center seems to be occupied by men and women with ages 40 and above. Calls got through easily to the call center but the information I received was mixed. It seemed that there is no coordination amongst the folks, no standard script and no consistent information. Every time I called, I got a different response about the delay of the plane. One said the plane is going to arrive at 7:30 pm from Frankfurt and depart an hour later that means I should be there at the airport around 5:30 pm. The confusion just continued until the last 50 calls on my cell phone were to Air India call center. I started to speak with the folks at the contact center in Hindi by now. Finally, I started to receive some consistent information. The plane arrived at around 10:30 pm finally and the departure time was set at 12:45 am by now.

I consoled myself that finally I am leaving. The plane ride was as smooth as any other with little further delays. The crew was friendly although the hostesses were not gorgeous looking women with a great figure, it isn't a requirement for me to travel. The food was great and met a few fellow passengers with whom you do not have to put on that fake American accent and talk your heart out in the language of the nation.

I got to know a few interesting facts from the cabin crew about the target segment of Air India that is largely aged Indians as the children can trust Air India cabin crew to help the old folks in need. I noticed that the plane was largely dominated by passengers of 50+ year age group. A few of them were really old to travel. One of the fellow passengers told us that these old passengers go to the US as their sons and/or daughters get a social security of approx. $800 per month on their behalf. I was surprised to hear that. For all the pain and trouble of traveling for 20 long hours children want their parents to come over and stay with them for some amount of money. I would not say that passengers in the airplane belonged to that category but it was an interesting fact little known to the masses.

Overall it was a good journey and I landed in New Delhi early morning on Monday. All is well that ends well but the experiences I gathered are unforgettable.