Air India Still Sucks

Trip Start Dec 27, 2005
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17
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Trip End Jan 15, 2006


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Flag of China  ,
Thursday, January 12, 2006

Air India is the worst airline. I thought I might have been a bit harsh last time but today's experience doesn't do it any favors. First the bureaucracy is astounding. Security/Check-in at the airport is to have all forms and all tags so that the various agents can rubber stamp the things. My trip through the airport consisted of:

1. Get in line (where it takes at least 30 minutes to process 2 people)
2. Realize that I'm missing some tag.
3. Get in another line
4. Wait another long time
5. Get back in the original line.
6. Repeat

Just ridiculous.

Once again Air India is 2 hours late. Every other flight is on time. Weather is great. Why is Air India the only major airline late (Air Tajikistan and Air Bangladesh are late as well but these are obscure airlines)? Is there an explanation? No. Nobody cares. I do have to say that unlike last week in China, the Indians here are calm. I think they are numb to the fact that Air India is going to be late.

What's up with the airport? Went to the bathroom but could not wash my hand because there is no running water? What??? These are some of the simple infrastructure things I mentioned earlier that must be improved. One easy solution is to bypass the government via privatization but the government blocks it because of the large faction of socialist/nationalist. What's up with holding development back due to stupid ideological policies?

Flight
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Just like last time, once the flight got going, it was pretty ok. The only drawback is because to the delay, the plane flew at 600mph which is faster than the general US ~550mph. I'm not quite sure what the implication of this was but it was sure as hell bumpier this time. Maybe that's why the provided free whiskey and beer to everyone...as a sedative.

Layover Onwards
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Just like last time these guys don't let us deplane but proceed to clean the plane with everybody left sitting inside. Makes no sense. What's even dumber is the airport crew that comes in to count the people left and to ask for their boarding passes. This begs one to ask the question: If they didn't let us off and nobody could get on, what's the point of checking the boarding passes???
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