[moralfibre]

Air India has been on a definitive makeover since it's acquisition from the state by the Tata group. The early signs of improvements or some not-so-good experiences are captured in this thread (Your review of Air India | 1 year since Tata took over).




Air India in a definitive attempt to boost their direct to North America coverage introduced a host of new flights covering popular destinations across the continent:



In line with their expansion, a fleet expansion was planned. In addition to the increased coverage, Air India did bring in measures to plug the shortage in their fleet to serve these new destinations. Five ex-Delta Boeing 777-200LRs were leased from Jettran. As soon as the news broke out, Avgeeks across the nation began tracking movements of these jets from Victorville, California to Singapore. Each of these planes were refurbished by Delta with a 3-class cabin configuration comprising of 28 Delta one suites, 48 seats in the Delta Premium Select cabin and 220 in the Y class configuration. Delta had invested $100M in 2018 to revive their fleet to this upgrade and barely flew these jets before taking the hard call to retire these jets in view of the pandemic.

So far, two of the five 200LRs have already been delivered to Air India christened Vihaan and Prabhat being registrations VT-AEF and VT-AEG respectively. VT-AEF has been deployed on the BOM-SFO-BOM route and runs a 3x weekly service from the financial capital of India to the tech capital of the US.

[moralfibre]

Being a regular on this route, I was eager to take my next flight on the refreshed cabins of Air India's newly inducted fleet. Therefore, I chose to arrive into Bombay instead of my preferred SFO-DEL-PNQ route. Booking was a straightforward experience. What set this apart was that Air India wasn't selling their premium Y cabin at a markup of 2x as is the normal for premium economy among other carriers. Instead, as an introductory measure, one could simply book a Premium economy seat for a cost of $110 one way to experience the upgrade. This is a lucrative option for those flying this sector as one gets an extra wide and extra legroom seat with excellent underthigh support, more elbow and shoulder room as well as premium meal service in this cabin.

It was a no brainer to spend that extra $220 for my to and fro journey. A good comparison between the Y cabin and the premium Y is as below:

Economy:



Premium Economy:



Even in the economy cabin, I can only think of two carriers that carry 9 abreast seating in a 3-3-3 configuration. Most others that I know of squeeze in a 3-4-3 seating setup that poaches in the seat width for every row.

More info on the refreshed cabins can be found here - Link

[moralfibre]

I'll get into reviewing every phase of this journey by starting with what you'd like and what you won't:

Likes:

• Extremely fast connections reducing 3 to 6 hours of overall travel time from North America to India.
• Modern and refreshed cabins in newly introduced sectors involving ex-Delta 777-200LR jets.
• Affordable fares which are at-par with competition while offering the convenience of a direct flight.
• Great local connections for Tier 1, Tier2 and Tier3 cities via Air India's domestic segments from BOM, DEL, BLR and HYD.
• In flight food caters to Indian taste buds. Quite comfortable for parents and families alike.
• Check In opens 48 hours before flight time.
• Seat selection offers a host of free options as against competition which places families at different corners of an aircraft.

Dislikes:

• Extremely slow and painful checkin process involving extra long queues for the coach segment.
• On time performance is severely impacted despite the intent for being on time.
• Cabin crew is quite cold and experiences vary across flights.
• No wifi or in-flight connectivity options that are now a norm on most international carriers.
• Ageing and outdated aircrafts will take a long time to refurbish and remodel. All 777-300ERs, 777-200LRs and 787s suffer from years of neglect.
• Ground staff at baggage handling in India have a babu hangover, they shrug and move away from answering any questions.

[moralfibre]

Checkin Process:

I decided to give Air India's mobile app a try. Will include a step by step pictorial citing the process and my comments on the UX on the app:

The welcome screen with a single and unmissable Checkin button. This one lets you check in 48 hours before scheduled take off:



Once you select Check in, suddenly the fonts, format and layout of the page jumps into a time machine and takes you back to demo websites you'd create as a school project. Think Times New Roman font, mismatched text boxes and everything that is a significant departure from the previous page that landed you here. While the previous page shows what flight I am scheduled to check in for, this one again seeks the PNR number and expects you to re-enter a captcha. Whoever thought about user experience that drives fluidic screens with minimal inputs from the user. Strange, isn't it?



If that's not it, your entire itinerary is displayed including a flight that is 7 days away. Obviously, you wouldn't be able to check in for your return flight but somehow Air India thinks you need to see this as an option to select with a hyperlinked Select button! Come on, use checkboxes and only display relevant information:



The app was abysmally slow, this screen showed up long enough to let me take a screenshot and stayed the same for atleast a couple of minutes. It starts with a different message and switches to this one after a minute:



And voila, you are checked in. It was that simple:



Since I had previously selected my seats, I did not have much to do. Preferred a front of the row, port side premium economy seat that I had previously paid for. For others, here's the seat selection legend:



The premium economy cabin comprises of 48 seats:



While the coach section is split between two exit doors, section 1 with 86 seats.:



And the remaining 122 seats at the rear of the aircraft. Notice how MOST seats are occupied indicating the popularity of this sector. Air India runs a 10x weekly from Delhi, a 3x weekly from Bombay and a 3x weekly from Bangalore. That's a combined count of 16 inbound flights a week! The passenger seated next to me, couldn't get a seat to the direct Delhi flight and had to transit via Bombay to make it. Air India is sitting on a Golden egg:



Hit next and you get an option to view your boarding passes along with your seating and flight information:



A little more scroll (ugh!) and you see the remaining portion of your check in summary:



Choose to view boarding passes and it once again displays information in a 2-page scroll. Part 1:



And part 2 which lets you email / text your boarding passes to your preferred destination:



It further scrolls down to page 3! Usually most airlines compress your boarding info on a single page and lets you directly move your boarding passes into your apple wallet or google pay wallet for easier access. This missing feature must make it to their roadmap sooner than later:



Clearly, Air India's app developers are fully ready to push your boarding cards in ios or Android's wallet format as seen in this summary view:



A subsequent return to home page confirms that you are checked in:

[moralfibre]

At the airport:

Air India operates the following schedule to SFO from DEL, BOM and BLR:



It is important to understand the dynamics of managing a flight prep for an airline at a remote airport with limited resources and a huge dependency on foreign agencies subcontracting work for ticketing, checkin, ground support, loading, cargo, fuel, etc. I am no expert on any of this but I had the opportunity to observe some challenges faced by AI at SFO when AI184 (2030 hrs) and AI180 (2100 hrs) depart within an interval of 30 minutes apart.

I reached the airport to find the entire isle of Air India check in counters packed to the brim with the queue snaking across multiple folds of people. It almost felt like a choked Chandni chowk bazaar. This was comfortably 3-4 hours before flight time for both flights. I'd put the estimated number of people at the counter to be in excess of 500 at that point of time. The line overflowed all the way from bay 7 all the way to bay 4. It left a not-so-good ground handling condition when all airlines merely had a few counters open per flight to safely handle passenger check in and baggage drops much more efficiently.

This was the condition at bay 6 at SFO international departures. I clicked this from across the bay to capture the chaos:



The queue stretched all the way till bay 4!



Thankfully First, Business and Star Alliance Gold customers had a separate counter at bay 7 that had 4 counters handling a much much smaller volume of passengers. Therefore, my baggage drop off took < 20 minutes. Air India staff didn't really publish a board inviting Star Alliance Gold customers to these windows. I had to walk up to an agent to re-confirm if they were accepting priority check in customers:

[moralfibre]

Boarding and lounge experience:

I must have boarded or deplaned from pretty much every G gate at SFO and a few A gates as well. Admittedly, the walks at SFO are amongst the shortest when compared to any other airport that I have been on. Very convenient and well spaced gates with adequate walkways and escalators to keep you from getting tired. My favorite for any flight is the open to sky deck at the end of the walkways at G gates. It's a fun place for plane spotters.

Owing to my Gold status on Star alliance, I was eligible to park myself in the United Club lounge at SFO. Spent roughly an hour at the lounge to grab a beverage and some snack before my flight. Nothing to write home about United's Club lounge. I wish that I get to experience their Polaris lounge experience some day.

I was quite apprehensive about about AI180's timeliness due to a terrible track record of delayed flights. Consistently, Air India's prime and most profitable route has an average delay of over an hour. I had experienced this first hand while flying AI184 to DEL as well in one of my previous travels. The total flight time from SFO to BOM averages very close to 17 hours. This one has NEVER left on-time or arrived on time. Air India needs to seriously fix this if they plan to be relevant as a global carrier competing against the best.



There are atleast 3 occasions with over a 4 hour delay in it's 14 flight history. With an average delay of over an hour to depart, the track record for AI180 is far from good. I anticipated this and prayed that we atleast stick to the average delay and not get caught in a 5+ hour delay. I had important meetings scheduled at 10am in Pune and had a long drive from Bombay to get there on time. VT-AEF remained true to its history and we were on the ground for over 2 hours due to ground handling delays. A weak link for the airline.

Boarding started on time, and I leveraged my position to get priority boarding. It is very hard for gate handlers to imbibe any sense of discipline among flyers to our homeland. Besides being eager to get on the plane fastest, people just don't seem to follow instructions. Most break lines, try and squeeze in and create a chaotic environment. It overwhelms the ground staff and adds to the overall delay for the airline to get it right. I hope some airline sets an example of disciplining their customers to follow a boarding process that will help keep the airline's punctuality in check.

Lastly, the over subscription to wheelchair assistance adds to the backlog for Indian carriers. There are far too many than normal requests for wheelchairs.

[moralfibre]

Hello VT-AEF - Vihaan:





The air hostesses greeted us with a warm smile as we set foot inside the coke can. Once onboard, I was greeted to an in cabin colour that was a significant departure from Air India's typical haldi kumkum themed interiors. The seats, panels, carpet looked fresh! This was the aircraft's 33rd flight in Air India colours. The interiors have been patched to hide Delta's signatures. No point in spending a fortune to hide their DNA as that's something that would give Air India a paradigm shift in approach and friendliness of the cabin. I had nothing to complain about given the extra legroom and pitch seat I was going to be parked in for the next 17 hours.

An idle container lift about 30 mins prior to departure indicates a delay:



Managed to board via the priority queue and was delighted to see a much fresher and cleaner aircraft compared to the existing ageing fleet:



A clean pillow, blanket and a water bottle greets you onboard:



Another quick shot displaying the legroom at the first in Premium economy before I settled in place:



The panel covering the galley was quite badly scratched with passenger baggage making in and out of the gangway. However, most airlines make an attempt to clean it up:



A Tumi amenity pouch was handed over to us. Included a pair of socks, night blinds and a chapstick if I recall correctly:



A comfortable set of footwear was handed over:



As were a nicer pair of headphones alongwith a polite but firm request to return it at the end of the flight:



As I settled into the seat, I realised that the front storage pouches could barely hold a battery bank and a small passport case. Too shallow and too thin to take in anything else:




Attachment 2406307

A nifty cubby hole can take in a thin ipad or even a 14" laptop securely. Very useful power ports with a USB and a proper 110V power plug can be used to charge your devices in place:



Tried to stretch out the footrest in the seat. It is height adjustable and is one of the three ways in which the seat can be made ergonomically comfortable:



A step on the footrest and a press of the button can drop or retract it to a comfortable position. A very important setup to have for a comfortable flight:



AI184 hadn't left as the clock ticked past 2100 hrs PDT. As I waited in hope to hear from the pilot on the radio:



Finally after about an hour and half of delay, we taxied to runway 28L in SFO:



What I had sorely missed on my DEL-SFO Air India flights, a working entertainment system:



For nothing but flight stats to give a sense of direction and position of the aircraft. However, I wasn't much pleased with it's functionality. Barring numeric stats, it showed nothing. Others have embedded cockpit views, cameras, runtime stats, headsup displays, etc in their flight information systems that are much better:



And the system did reboot itself once in the flight unannounced:



The tray table is neatly concealed in the armrest. Getting out is such a joy given the mechanical retract and folding systems that are so fluidic. The tray folds with a neat magnetic click to stay in place and avoid rattles during taxi, takeoff or landing:



Dinner spread was decent with a chicken dish accompanied by a paratha, rice, a paneer veggie and a potato side. A good salad, yogurt and a bread bun with butter gave company to the meal tray:



Breakfast service included one of the best omelettes I've had at 39000 feet. A grilled portion of chicken, a croissant and strawberry yogurt completed the spread:




A little later into the flight, I did order in a south Indian breakfast just to try out the vegetarian variety and it did not disappoint either.



Does anyone know why Air India restrooms have a "Security checked" sticker posted on either sides of the commode? While I'd commend on the newer staff having neatly placed the sticker one over the other, my previous flights have triggered an OCD where this sticker was all across the wall in the restroom forming a terrible sight:



Undoubtedly the highlight inside the otherwise cramped toilet is a foot operated flush :




Download offline Google maps and trigger it once in a while to know what you are flying over:

[moralfibre]

In Summary:

Once in flight, the crew tried their best to make us comfortable. A few pax had achieved a higher tier on their alliance partners. The cabin crew chief made us a courtesy visit and ensured that she and her staff were there to assist us and make our flight comfortable. However, some things do need attention. The restrooms although blocked for Business and Premium economy cabins required care. They weren't the cleanest I've been to. The crew's handling of the galley area left a lot to be desired. There was a constant chatter among the members. A check on their pax being comfortable without elevating noise levels in the galleys could be of great service to make the flight comfortable.

The punctuality of this sector leaves a terrible dent on the airline's on-time performance. A lot needs to be done to address this. Ask anyone flying out of SFO to DEL/BLR/BOM and return, they've run into severe troubles. At one such instances, baggage wasn't on the carousel for well over 2 hours after the flight arrived into SFO. On another occasion, the flight out of Bangalore was delayed by 7+ hours!

The Air India staff that loiters around the baggage carousels reek of terrible attitude. I asked them a question and they showed no courtesy to answer or respond. Simply shrugged their shoulders and moved away. When my bags arrived, I noticed that the check in agent did not attach priority tags on my bags despite being eligible for those.

Overall, Air India is making the right moves but with a severe hangover from babu driven days, it will take a paradigm shift in HR policies to bring the crew, ground staff and others up to speed with modern industry practices. Don't believe me? Try calling Air India's call center and speak to any of their agent, it sounds like the person is scolding you rather than trying to solve your problem.

On the positives: the direct connectivity and refreshed interiors are a welcome welcome change. Meal services are excellent and the quality of food is best of the best. Air India now has the routes and hard product to serve a very important route to their profitability and resurgence. It will take miles and miles of team work, execution and positive attitude to revive this.

I am of the opinion that one must not make an emotional decision in their corporate life, RNT made one with Air India on behalf of Tata Sons. Let's hope it works out in the best interest of their shareholders.

Up next: BOM-SFO AI179 experience.

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[fhdowntheline]

Why does AI have to use Delta inflight cabin configuration? Why can't they specify their own? Or is it just a temporary measure.

[no_fear]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

Why does AI have to use Delta inflight cabin configuration? Why can't they specify their own? Or is it just a temporary measure.

Temporary measure - the planes are on short lease, after Delta retired the B777 200LR variant. AI has leased 5 of them to fly the US / India routes.

It's only a stop gap until AI starts getting the new B 777 / 787s currently on order delivered. So it makes little economic sense to re-do the interiors of an aircraft they have to return. Pus the interiors were refurbished by Delta very recently before the planes were leased by AI.

AI got a good deal out of this, plus they re-introduced premium economy on the long haul segment.

There is a massive shortage of aircraft currently, hence AI has to do with what they can get in the market.

[dragracer567]

Did not know that Air India took more 777-200LRs on lease, a prudent decision given how lucrative the North American flights have become - especially SFO. I believe Air India previously owned 8 777-200LRs but sold 5 of them to Etihad for what was effectively throwaway prices.

[vigsom]

Originally Posted by moralfibre

- Extremely fast connections reducing 3 to 6 hours of overall travel time from North America to India
- Great local connections for Tier 1, Tier2 and Tier3 cities via Air India's domestic segments from BOM, DEL, BLR and HYD

Thank You for the great review, @moralfibre. Some folks that I know have been huge fans of the AI101 and AI102 simply for the convenience - board from any Tier2 Airport in India and the baggage is checked in straight to the US destination. In one case, the MAA - DEL flight was delayed but the ground staff ensured that the connecting passengers were taken to AI101 quickly. The only issue is on the return - they'd have to clear customs in DEL before re-depositing their bags for the domestic sector.

- In flight food caters to Indian taste buds; dinner spread was decent with a chicken dish accompanied by a paratha, rice, a paneer veggie and a potato side. A good salad, yogurt and a bread bun with butter gave company to the meal tray
- Breakfast service included one of the best omelettes I've had at 39000 feet. A little later into the flight, I did order in a south Indian breakfast just to try out the vegetarian variety and it did not disappoint either

Yet another plus about Air India - the food generally never disappoints and beats meal on other airlines w.r.t to the Indian touch. The third, and very important plus about Air India is their pilots. I'd rate them among the best in the industry.

- Extremely slow and painful checkin process involving extra long queues for the coach segment.
- Cabin crew is quite cold and experiences vary across flights
- Ground staff at baggage handling in India have a babu hangover, they shrug and move away from answering any questions.
- I had to walk up to an agent to re-confirm if they were accepting priority check in customers
- hard for gate handlers to imbibe any sense of discipline among flyers to our homeland.Most break lines, try and squeeze in and create a chaotic environment

The same flyers boarding other aircraft behave themselves appropriately. It's just got to do with, "We're on our desi bus, so let's behave suitably".

About the attitude of staff, this could have easily been fixed by now had the intent been there; but I'm quite sure it will never change as customer service has never been the USP of this group - one can see enough sub par experiences across other businesses.

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by moralfibre

While the coach section is split between two exit doors, section 1 with 86 seats.:

Attachment 2406256

And the remaining 122 seats at the rear of the aircraft. Notice how MOST seats are occupied indicating the popularity of this sector. Air India runs a 10x weekly from Delhi, a 3x weekly from Bombay and a 3x weekly from Bangalore. That's a combined count of 16 inbound flights a week! The passenger seated next to me, couldn't get a seat to the direct Delhi flight and had to transit via Bombay to make it. Air India is sitting on a Golden egg:

In my view/observation/opinion, the seat occupancy charts shown during during web-check-in are fake; perhaps barring the paid seat options.

I have seen quite different maps two days prior, one day prior, and 1 hour prior in domestic flights.


By the way, I flew last Friday on Dreamliner from Delhi to Mumbai and it was full. I wonder why other airlines are still using smaller B737, A320s - perhaps because the smaller ones can be used on other sectors and flights? Anyway, coming home to the aircraft & service: few people were not happy that they were not served non-veg food . The seats and fabrics appeared to have lost their sheen, the display and its controller had a severe latency - all the best to international traveler on this plane. Service was also slightly lagging.
Except for non-veg food, I didn't experience anything different from previous Air India flights.

[Theyota]

A former boss of mine always said, feedback is gift and I believe it is. The OP of this thread has taken so much effort to write his very extensive feedback. I hope Air India reads this feedback and helps itself to make some improvements. Some of these things, like efficient check-in and baggage claim processes should be very basic for anyone running an airline, not to speak of an airline line Air India that will cross a centenary year in business very soon. But many still fail in it.