Experience aboard flight AI 447 & IC 519

I was all geared up to head home to Bangalore on 14th June, when I got a mail that my direct flight from Singapore to Bangalore was cancelled and I had to first disembark at Chennai and then take another flight to Bangalore. Indeed I was disappointed! I was looking forward to going home and meeting my husband as well as my nephew (a naughty little boy, whom I can’t get enough of) and then Air India drops this bombshell that the direct flight is cancelled. I mentally braced myself up for layover at Chennai. I had to wait for 6 hours for my flight to Bangalore!

I checked in at Singapore and boarded the aircraft! As expected, the hostesses were matronly figures (one in fact, was limping so much that I was reminded of my grandmother!) and I had a “homely” feeling while in the aircraft. Of course I’m being acerbic when I say so! There is this perpetual scorn that each hostess adorns on her face. However, on this particular flight from Singapore to Chennai, the hostesses had every reason to show their disparagement! For the first time in my life did I understand the meaning of the phrase “cattle class” as coined by Shashi Tharoor! Bad enough you had to put up with halitosis and body odor around you; but the boisterous kids were the icing on the cake! They all but played cricket in the aircraft! Not to forget the innumerable trips passengers made to the cabin toilet. Honey, I shrunk the urinary bladders of all the passengers aboard AI 447 and now they are making a beeline to the toilet! It felt more like a travel in train than by an aircraft. I would have been happy had I traveled by train, if there could be one from Singapore to India. You at least had the luxury of fresh air breezing in from the windows or better, well air conditioned coaches with limited number of people. You wouldn’t have to be agonized by the flatulence of the passengers all herded in one aircraft, with no means of spreading the obnoxious stench emanating thereof.

Agreed, it is unfair to call the lesser mortals “cattle class” merely because they lack that sophistication of the civil society. But whatever in the world would make them think that it is alright to ask for as many bottles as they fancy from the bar in the aircraft? And then, when it is actually provided, the bottles go right into the paraphernalia of the passenger, than emptying the contents into the tummy! Geez! How uncouth can that get? And then there are passengers who are under the impression that by buying an air ticket, everything in the aircraft belongs to them! Cutlery and cabin shawls are pilfered!

When it was finally time for me to deplane, I actually let out a sigh of relief. Passengers, who were expressly requested by the cabin crew not to unfasten their seat belts till the signs were put off, and not to switch on their mobile phones till the doors of the aircraft were open, took pleasure in flouting those rules! That is typical Indian behavior. I’ve never seen any other national behave in such manner in an aircraft. As much as I take pride in being Indian, I’m also embarrassed and ashamed when fellow countrymen show no signs of urbane upbringing.

With my immigration procedures completed in Chennai, I headed straight to the Indian Airlines ticketing counter to collect my ticket for the domestic flight to Bangalore and a rude shock awaited me. “You have no booking for Chennai to Bangalore aboard IC 519!!! Good Lord! This is all I need now! From then started a four hour ordeal where I ran from pillar to post to get my domestic flight ticket. Air India directs me to Indian Airlines, and Indian Airlines directs me to customer care counter, which in turn directs me to the baggage counter!!! When I had enough of this running around, I just put my foot down and all but yelled at the staff. “I want to meet your duty manager now!” When that was agreed, the Indian Airlines duty manager says, “Sorry Ma’m, this pertains to Air India, you need to see the duty manager there. Though IA and AI have merged, it is still separate!” Whatever that’s supposed to mean! After what seemed to be an eternity, I finally got to meet the duty manager of Air India, who got my ticket issued. Thank God for small mercies. He didn’t make me run around anymore. When I first got the mail mentioning the change in flight, I wondered how I would kill 6 hours in the Chennai airport. I had no inkling as to what was in store for me! By the time I actually sat down to rest my stressed feet, it was time for me to board the aircraft again. This time around, I really didn’t care about the vociferous pandit who boarded the flight and realized he left his mobile phone while checking in at the security and demanded that the host on the flight get it for him; nor did the constant banging of my reclining seat by the passenger seated directly behind me while shifting his position, annoy me. All I could think of was getting home to see my nephew and my husband. The ill-mannered people could go fly a kite.