You can fly from Delhi to New York in around 15 hours, but still the advice will be to not book Air India – because India’s national carrier’s consistency to discomfort passengers can last as long as 14 hours on a flight from Kolkata to Delhi that needs only a couple of hours of flying time.
I was scheduled to fly AI 701 on Monday. But instead of a comfortable journey along with other passengers, I underwent an ordeal that left children, women, elderly and everyone else to the mercy of God for an entire night.
The Maharajah’s head was left hanging in disgrace due to sheer unprofessionalism, incompetence and white lies of its employees that kept close to 200 passengers in the dark.
The misery started with a last-minute change of boarding gate from No. 16 to No. 4 at a time when most of the airport security, amid fan frenzy, was busy ensuring incident-free boarding to the Indian cricket team.
But AI 701 passengers were still rushing as it was already well past the boarding time of 5:30 pm, which was actually the take off time mentioned on my e-ticket. So a delay was certain, though none of us had a hunch that we will see the next day’s sunrise in Kolkata itself.
The swanky Dreamliner made its push back and start, but soon the captain spotted a technical glitch and announced that the plane would require checks, which will cause a further delay.
The personal entertainment system inside the Dreamliner pacified most of the passengers as many were seen with their headsets on. When the wait extended and the captain announced further delay, the crew decided to serve what they called was “dinner” but it turned out to be only refreshments.
With that, AI bought some more time. But not for long.
By now the polite inquiries had turned into demands for an update, voices acquired an agitated tone, and passengers started pacing up and down the plane.
On board was also the Pakistan High Commissioner, his team and Yechury, all of who left after the delay extended to more than two hours.
It was learnt that the Pakistan officials, barring one who was unfortunate to return to the broken aircraft, were flown to Delhi by another flight.
The captain soon gave up hope: “We are trying to reboot the computer. If the problem persists, you will be required to deplane but another aircraft has been arranged that will leave at 10:30 p.m.”
That led to a few smiles, but it didn’t last long.
We de-boarded the Dreamliner and were put on a bus that transported us to a deserted domestic terminal. Besides the AI 701 passengers, there was no soul in the vicinity to cater to distressed passengers, many of whom were hungry and thirsty.
Hearing some of the loud shouts, a few of the airport staff arrived, followed by some of the Air India officials. They had no clue or any communication about what the Dreamliner captain had announced.
That was the first of many-to-follow instances, where the situation crossed the boiling point for a few of us. Seeing it getting out of hands, a few of the officials reacted and announced that a decision has been taken to arrange an aircraft and fly it to Delhi around 2 am, for which we were asked to go to Counter ‘G’ to collect fresh boarding passes.
Also among the stranded passengers was Pakistan singer Shafqat Amanat Ali, who was in Kolkata for the cricket match between India and Pakistan, and also sang his country’s National Anthem at the Eden Gardens Stadium.
But he soon disappeared.
It was good to see 6-7 counters being opened to issue new boarding passes. But slightly strange was to see the boarding time mentioned as 1:45 am while the printed date read March 20, despite the clock turning one past midnight.
Those with kids were especially happy to board a working aircraft, as the little ones could be heard getting cranky by now.
But that was not the end of the ordeal.
Soon there was an argument at the front entrance of the second aircraft. “There is no crew available at this hour, and the flight can now take off only in the morning.”
Those of us who were patient until now joined in, and did not allow the officials on board to leave the plane – telling them to not test the patience of people who have spent their hard-earned money to get nothing.
There was not a reason on earth anybody could blame any of us for anything we said.
These were helpless passengers being subjected to humiliation as each of Air India’s lies was stripped bare by now.
They knew there was no crew, wasted as much time they could at the terminal while issuing new boarding passes and then killed more time by boarding the passengers to a new aircraft, expecting that we would be sleepy at 2 in the morning and soon give up on our protest.
That did not happen. And when there was another announcement to "deplane", one of the ladies went all out after the Commercial Manager of the airport, lashing out at him in a fit of rage. Soon another lady broke down, talking to her mother who was waiting for her at home since 7 pm the previous day.
There were two foreigners on board too – one missed her connecting flight to Chicago, the other to Europe. Still they held their own, as they had to in a foreign country.
The situation was one step away when one of us could have lost his or her cool and actually assaulted one of the airport employees or Air India personnel. The harassment and humiliation we were going through had reached such an intolerable level.
The threats and refusal to leave the plane perhaps made them spring into action, as the clock struck three and some more AI official seemed to have come on duty at the airport.
After deliberations and discussions between the authorities in Kolkata and Delhi, they caved in to our demand. We were informed that the same aircraft that we were on will leave for Delhi at 6:45 am in the morning.
Many had left by then, creating space for AI to accommodate a few of their morning fliers to AI 701.
Among those returning at 6 am was Mr Yechury, amid boos and shouts of shame...shame".
He and the airline staff denied any allegations of preferential treatment. By this time, it was difficult to believe a soul in Air India after the airline had peddled a series of lies in the last 10 hours.
Air time finally arrived, and then Delhi at 8:55 am. But I firmly believe that none of us will ever return to an AI boarding gate ever again.
Enough of the Maharajah!
(The above is a first person account by Jaspreet Sahni, the Deputy Editor Sports (IBNLive) and Cricketnext. He was returning from Kolkata after covering the India-Pakistan World T20 match.)
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