[pms]

Based on my recent Air India experience to Chennai-Singapore return (AI346 & AI347) in Economy, voted NO.

Flights used in this sector were A320 Neo. Single aisle, 3x3 seating in Economy. Flight had 12 Business Class Seats (2x2 config) which looked worn out.

I feel Air India has many miles to go to improve the overall experience.

Some of the pros and cons as per my experience listed below.

Pros:
- On time departure and arrival
- Food was really good
- Check-in Luggage allowance (30Kg)
- Very efficient and smooth check-in desk at Changi Airport
- Ticket Cost ~20K return which was the cheapest for the dates we chose.

Cons:
- Interiors looked dated, definitely needs a makeover.
- Cramped leg space in Economy. Am 6ft tall and I can immediately feel the difference when I took the 2nd leg of Chennai - BLR via Indigo. Indigo had much better leg space.
- No inflight entertainment for a 4:20 Hr flight, not even magazines. Felt bare bones.
- No power or USB sockets!!
- No beverages before the meal on the return sector, felt strange despite the breakfast meal served at 10:30AM Singapore time.
- Not so good experience with Air India ground staff in Chennai. Took ages to open their counters and didnt provide a smooth check in experience. We were a group of 10 in a single PNR and they allowed the entire check-in through 1 counter only that ate up lots of time.

Am not sure how Indigo experience is in this sector, but definitely Singapore Airlines is several notches above Air India.

Onward flight at Chennai Airport


Beverages and starters served at CHN-SG sector


Main meal served at CHN-SG sector - good quality and quantity!


Return flight at Singapore Airport

[GTO]

It appears that the maintenance issues are not only on the inside, but even the outside. This Air India plane was the dirtiest I spotted that day. Is it a fair observation from someone who doesn't understand the airline industry at all?





Compare that to the squeaky clean Indigo:

[Foxbat]

Originally Posted by GTO

It appears that the maintenance issues are not only on the inside, but even the outside. This Air India plane was the dirtiest I spotted that day. Is it a fair observation from someone who doesn't understand the airline industry at all?

Attachment 2384334

Attachment 2384333

Compare that to the squeaky clean Indigo:
Attachment 2384335

I'm no expert but I guess a plane parked in at a dusty airport or landing after flying through the smog of Delhi or dust storm will be a lot dirtier than a freshly washed one. Also a plane might be on its 3rd or 4th flight in the day or a long haul flight while the other maybe freshly cleaned and on its first journey of the day.

The age of the plane also matters (just like a car), in the picture both the planes are Air India and Indigo A320s . The newest Air India A320 must be around 5 years old while some are around 10 years old.

Indigo A320s have an average age of about 3.9 years and has recently taken delivery of new ones so the plane pictured may be brand new. I could not find the registration numbers from the pictures but if we knew them we could find the exact age of the aircraft.

EDIT: I just noticed the Indigo plane appears a bit longer than a A320 so actually might be an A321 NEO (a longer A320). In that case its age is between a few days (Indigo is taking delivery of new ones regularly) to a maximum of 2 years old if its' the oldest one in the fleet.

Here is a dirty Lufthansa A380 landing after probably a long haul flight.

[sameer_vwagner]

Note to mods: Please feel free to move this to another thread if required.

Vistara to be merged with Air India by March 2024.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/tata...ndtv_topscroll

Article:

Vistara airlines will be merged with Tata-owned Air India by March 2024, the company announced today. Singapore Airlines, which owns minority share in Vistara in its joint venture with Tata, will own around 25 per cent of the enlarged Air India, into which it'll infuse over ₹ 2,000 crore.
The rearrangement will mean a larger fleet and more routes under the Air India brand as Tata Sons rebuilds a mega aviation wing of its empire. At present, 51 per cent share in Vistara is with Tata, while Singapore Airlines owns the remaining 49 per cent in the join venture set up in 2013.

Since Tata bought Air India for ₹ 18,000 crore as part of a government disinvestment around a year ago, the plan has been to merge all its aviation brands under that name.

For Vistara, the two owners "aim to complete the merger by March 2024, subject to regulatory approvals", said a Singapore Airlines release. Tata also owns low-cost carriers Air India Express and AirAsia India, both of which will be merged under the Air India brand, too, by 2024.

This will take the fleet size to 218, putting togetaher Air India's 113 with AirAsia India's 28, Vistara's 53, and Air India Express's 24. It will then be India's largest international carrier and second largest domestic carrier, Tata Sons said.

Reports have also said it is likely to order 300 narrow-body jets, one of the largest orders ever in aviation history, which would be delivered gradually. Air India's chief executive officer had said that it aims to triple its fleet of 113 over the next five years.

This is a big step towards the Tatas rebuilding Air India, a company founded by the family-run group but later nationalised, only to come back to Tata Sons after losses piled up and the government decided it's best to sell it off.

"As part of the transformation, Air India is focusing on growing both its network and fleet, revamping its customer proposition, enhancing safety, reliability, and on-time performance," the company release quoted Tata Sons chairperson N Chandrasekaran as saying.

Goh Choon Phong, the chief executive of Singapore Airlines, said, "Our collaboration to set up Vistara in 2013 resulted in a market-leading full-service carrier, which has won many global accolades in a short time. With this merger, we have an opportunity to deepen our relationship with Tata and participate directly in an exciting new growth phase in India's aviation market."

[asitkde]

I have taken an international (Kolkata-London) roundtrip Air India flight in August-September this year. It was via Hyderabad while going and via Delhi while coming back.

Overall I would say it was a bit better experience than before.

Firstly, the fare was 236% more than what we paid in June-July 2019 for the same destination and back, that was Air India too. I have no idea why the fare went up by such a huge amount. Our idea was to take a flight directly from India to UK and the same thing on the way back. It would have been slightly cheaper (a bit less than 200% increase) if we decided to take Emirates or Qatar or some other airlines.

When we checked in online, we did not get boarding passes. This happened each way.

The aircrafts were okayish, nothing exceptional, not poor either. However, many of the infotainment screens were not operational on all the sectors.

The food was okay in amount and frequency, quality was just okay. It was nothing like the quality in 70's and early 80's. They are now serving Sula wine, instead of european wines. However, in my judgement, all airlines serve very average food to their economy class passengers these days. A few years ago I remember, if I did not order Hindu meal on my Singapore to Brisbane Quantas flight, I would not perhaps have been able to eat at all. Many Australians around me were complaining and they wanted to have the same thing I was having.

Take-off, cruise and landing were typical Air India, very smooth. Compare that to the many rough landings with especially American Airlines. They just almost drop to the runway rather than smoothly land.

I also noticed, flight attendants were almost entirely men on all the sectors I travelled. They were efficient and quick, but not very gracious as they used to be years ago. However, that is the norm of the day with almost all airlines these days.

The two biggest positive change with Air India I noticed, were the better efficiency of the ground-staff and keeping better times with respect to take-off and landing.

At all the airports we were helped by ground-staff at a level that I have not seen before. For example, while checking in our luggage in Kolkata, there was a group just ahead of us with tons of luggage and perhaps some other complications. Seeing this, a staff approached us and took us to a counter that was not accepting passengers at that time, but was manned with a staff who was doing some paperwork. We were checked in quickly there. We got similar help again at Heathrow.

They are starting boarding quite ahead of time and also taking off in time, or just before time if they got all passengers in, a bit like Indigo.

We got our luggages intact.

Hence, overall it was a better experience.

[Dieseltuned]

Originally Posted by asitkde

When we checked in online, we did not get boarding passes. This happened each way.

This particular point is not common to Air India, This is to do with government policies.

I had similar experience on Singapore Airlines in this month where the checkin was done online but the boarding pass had to be collected on the counter.

I think, All airlines had blocked issuing boarding pass especially on international sectors on their websites as the passenger is supposed to furnish their vaccine certificate to the desk before a boarding pass issued.

Now that Air suvidha has been kicked out (i hope for good) we should be able to get boarding passes online again.

Regards
Dieseltuned

[Turbanator]

Originally Posted by Dieseltuned

This particular point is not common to Air India, This is to do with government policies.

I think Airline staff has to check Passports and visas in person. That Visa is fed in real-time somewhere perhaps and once everything is cleared a boarding pass is issued.

Last Year, while flying to Canada, my Visa was in the older expired passport so Airline had to call someone in Toronto and get that Visa updated internally before a boarding pass was issued. It was Air Canada so it was easy.

[no_fear]

Originally Posted by Dieseltuned

This particular point is not common to Air India, This is to do with government policies.

No, this is to do with individual airline. All airlines will check for visas unless you are a citizen of the country going either back to your home country or to a country where your passport does not require a visa.

Airlnes use TIMATIC database to check the requirements.

As an example - even if you have a valid visa, if you do not have a round trip ticket, an airline will not let you board the aircraft, unless you can show proof of purchase of roundtrip ticket.

Originally Posted by Turbanator

I think Airline staff has to check Passports and visas in person.

Visas are not fed real time. Airline systems don't store any visa information. They only store passport data. Visas are checked by check in agent to ensure you have a valid visa for travel.

for your Canada travel - agent checked the requirement that your visa is ok to be on an expired passport than on current passport for boarding pass issue.

Not all agents are aware of boarding pass issuance guidelines, especially at Delhi airport where the ground staff are contractors.

[Turbanator]

Originally Posted by no_fear

for your Canada travel - agent checked the requirement that your visa is ok to be on an expired passport than on current passport for boarding pass issue.

Not all agents are aware of boarding pass issuance guidelines, especially at Delhi airport where the ground staff are contractors.

Nope, I was standing right next to her when she called and got a long number, (must be 8 or 10 digit) that she fed in her computer before a boarding pass was issued.

If not all, many countries would have requirements of feeding Visa number and the same must be matched with passport. If there’s a mis-match they will have to ask someone to get this corrected. Per agent, it was a normal. It definitely took some time, not sure if they have a separate department at base or have to actually ask someone in immigration.

Remember, it’s expensive to get any passengers back if they are not allowed entry in the traveling country. And in case of any carelessness, Airlines are fined.

[noopster]

Voted Yes. I travelled Air India recently after a gap of more than 15 years (!) and found the experience very pleasant indeed.

When I first started travelling domestically by air, there was Air India (then Indian Airlines) along with Jet Airways, Sahara and a couple of others. I've travelled AI quite frequently back then and the experience was good. Then came Deccan (which I loathed with all my heart because of the no-frills thing!) and shortly after Kingfisher which remained my favourite way to fly till they went out of business. After that it's been pretty much only no-frills airlines flying, of which I've found Indigo to be the best in terms of reliability and on-time performance. GoFirst (previously Go Air), SpiceJet and Air Asia India are inconsistent- some experiences have been great, others not so much.

I had virtually stopped flying Air India until a recent family wedding where the GoFirst flight I had booked was mysteriously cancelled without assigning a reason. Luckily it was well in advance and someone mentioned that Air India offers 25 kg baggage allowance per head instead of 15, so I quickly rebooked on Air India. I remember the online booking experience to be much more seamless than it was earlier (though there was a scary moment when I thought the booking had failed, but it hadn't!) The annoying thing was that I couldn't change my seat assignment once I had booked. However one pleasant surprise was that they offered me a chance to upgrade one of the tickets (my mom's) to business class by placing a bid. The amount quoted seemed very reasonable so I put a bid in, which turned out to be the winning one, so my 81-year old Mom got the opportunity to travel business class with the rest of us cattle somewhere behind her

Check-in and boarding, in-flight experience, seating quality and leg room were all above average. I've gotten used to the plain white and dark blue of Indigo so the splash of colour (red and ochre) in the cabin was somewhat unnerving, though you get used to it quickly. Flight was on time- in fact we were shocked at how early they boarded us.

The last Air India flight I'd flown before this was in 2005 when my grandmother died and I had to dash home by a last-minute midnight flight. It was one of those international connections and mostly empty but the interiors smelled bad (I didn't dare use the toilets) and the ageing air hostesses ignored you and focused on their beauty sleep instead So i don't know if the recent pleasant experience has anything to do with the Tatas taking over or just my luck! But I wouldn't mind travelling Air India to more destinations and will be sure to check if they have a flight on my next sector!

[moralfibre]

Originally Posted by no_fear

Airlnes use TIMATIC database to check the requirements.

As an example - even if you have a valid visa, if you do not have a round trip ticket, an airline will not let you board the aircraft, unless you can show proof of purchase of roundtrip ticket.

I can speak for travel to the US, New Zealand and Australia. My mom shuffles between these three countries and India for a month in a calendar year. We always get her one way tickets because she almost never travels back to her country of departure.

I don’t think airlines can block you from boarding a one way flight. It is the job of the immigration and border agents appointed at the port of entry.

[Mohan Mathew A]

I have regularly travel Air India, albeit one particular sector Cok-Bom evening 8.10 flight, as it is the last flight out of Kochi to Mumbai. After the Tata takeover i would have travelled atleast 7 or 8 times and the aircrafts have generally not been in very good condition with broken armrests and seatbacks and food just average (more or less same as before). But the on time performance has definitely improved, generally landing before time and the inflight crew behaviour has improved somewhat.

[ifly]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

In India, Indigo followed by Vistara are best at maintenance, both engineering and aesthetics. Air India of old had some good people {or maybe several} but poor practices. It will take time for even Tata's to turn the ship around given the babu culture they inherited. But I would not consider an Air India aircraft as unsafe. Unkempt maybe but not unsafe. Air Asia and Spicejet I will let my silence and significant at the coal face experience speak for itself. Coming to aesthetics, internal and external, to fully refurbish say an A320 to look sparkling new would cost around $400k to $600k at the very minimum with out any engineering item. It will take the machine off the airways for a month so that much revenue loss too - say Rs 15 to 18 crores a month per aircraft. So Air India first needs a big infusion of capital to do that refurb of its fleet.

Hello,

Where are you getting these numbers and figures from? I am in the industry for close to two decades and wondering what are the basis of the figures that you have quoted.

Thank you,

iFly

[d.j]

sharing my experience, I did a higher class with them on Mumbai Chicago route few months back, it was a 777 and the flights, in & out were via Delhi. This was my first time after 2003-04, the middle east players are far more efficient and the class facilities they offer are of day night difference, but back at that time the price difference was 2. XX to 4.XX, as good as double, they still are cheaper by 20% or so. The only advantage until they have the new planes dedicated to those sectors is the price, the entry snacks was packed in a poly bag, picture speaks

,

on which I would say rather don’t serve it, the seat assigned was broken and they gave me a bulkhead isle, this is one of the worst seats to fly on an airplane, aisle is good, but not at the bulkhead.

My advice to them is, don't make a lavish, luxury service, there are many travelers, including me, those who don’t need the bar at the end, just need a clean, comfortable, functional cabin with level food service, that’s it, keep it well priced and I personally never would leave our maharaja, stick to the safety and seats for the time, also there are few more things which are very fast and easy to adopt, for example Sxx offers Indian masala tea on Mumbai - Singapore sector, even on an economy class, this is straight from the kettle, very closed to a boiled tea, small difference but so accurate.

Carry your own entertainment library and headsets.

Regards/DJ

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by ifly

Hello,

Where are you getting these numbers and figures from? I am in the industry for close to two decades and wondering what are the basis of the figures that you have quoted.

Thank you,

iFly

Thank you for your question. In my past life I used to own and run four aviation businesses in different lines of the industry. One of them involved amongst other things refurb of airliner interiors and aircraft re-painting. I'm talking of globally, not locally. Machines we worked on were mainly ATR, A320, B737, A330, A340 and B747 but occasionally also rarer machines such as Saab 2000, Fokker 100 or BAe146. So these figures are ball park directional numbers from my past billings to customers. Turbanator asked a question so I gave him a directional answer to give readers a ballpark. Reality is the figures can vary a lot depending on the work order.

I would be happy to hear the numbers you have. Always pleased to learn something new. Hope this helps.

Glad to see a veteran pilot like you active on team BHP after a silence of 9 years. I loved your thread on the A320.