It seems that Indian Airlines, Delays, Lack of Customer Sensitivity all like to often go together in the same sentence.
I am doing this post from Mumbai airport waiting for my Indian Airlines flight to finally start boarding. My flight IC 173 from Mumbai to Chennai was scheduled at 8:30 PM, at 8:25 PM when few people went near the gate they were told that is delayed to 11 PM – absolutely no prior announcement. Then it got rescheduled to 11:30 PM. As I write this, it is 11:25 PM and no sign of boarding :-(
It is common knowledge that Mumbai Airport Runway is getting repaired and flights are likely to be delayed by 2hrs, but it leaves me clueless on how the airline didn’t know they are facing a delay before you allow people into Security Check (or) near the gate. On top of all this, like always it follows Indian Airlines tradition of making no announcement till the scheduled minute passes. No use of technology – No SMS, No Signboard alerts not even standard Public Address Systems.
I am a frequent flyer in Indian Airlines and though I love Jet Airways (and rate them as the best Airline in the world in terms of Customer Service) there are a lot of things I like in Indian as well; like their A320 Aircrafts and its wide LegRoom, Food, Safety, etc. But incidence like the one today, makes you wonder whether the Airline Staff will ever learn that flying people is all about Customer Service (key being it is a service). So far the Private Airlines getting 75% of market share or competition from half-a-dozen airlines don’t seem to have done the magic. Maybe the government has kept the magic wand for this somewhere and is searching it in the corridors of power!.
Till then Indian Travellers like you and me, have nothing but to pray and thank god for getting the three hours like this to do your pending emails and write useless blogs like this one :-) (Or) Fly only with Jet Airways (Or) Avoid Travelling to Mumbai / Delhi altogether.