A good choice for those not able to spend much money for their trip
Written: Jul 04 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Low price
Cons: Departed late
The Bottom Line: Not the best quality, but it's entirely worth the low amount of money that you have to pay!
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| lana519's Full Review: Air India |
Intro
I flew with Air-India from LAX in California to the Frankfurt airport in Germany and back in the recent months. I chose this flight because it was the cheapest I could find. I think it can be safely assumed that a product much cheaper than others of the same type will be of lesser quality. Well, it is of course true for this airline, but none of those elements were so terrible that it really bothered me. The worst thing that happened during my experience with this airline was that on the first flight, we departed from the airport about an hour or so later than the scheduled time, though I have no idea whether this was the fault of Air India or if it was the airport's fault or something else (this delay later caused me to miss my second flight from Frankfurt to Bremen, but it ended up being no problem because someone at that airport just gave me a ticket for the next flight to Bremen, so it turned out fine). My experience with this flight was quite great, especially considering how much I paid for it. I've divided each section into two parts; one describing my experience during the first flight and the other about my experience on the returning flight.
My Flight Experience
Departing Flight: I have read several of the other reviews for Air India on this site and the experiences seem to be rather varied. Well, I'll share how my specific flight ended up going. After everyone had boarded the plane and found their seats, I realized that each person had their own row of seats to themselves because of the lower number of people being on this flight. This allowed quite a comfortable environment. Most people pulled up the arm rests and slept on top of all of the seats. It was really nice having all that room to myself. Though, obviously, I can't guarantee this would happen to you, it just happened on that flight because of the amount of people flying. The plane itself seemed well-maintenanced. There were no problems with any of the technical aspects of the plane, and the take-off, landing, and flight went quite smoothly. There wasn't even very much turbulence (except the time I decided to go to the bathroom, which was pretty funny).
Returning Flight: This time, I didn't have the same luck. Two other people sat next to me, so I didn't have the same luxury. The seats were indeed cramped and I had no privacy during the flight. It was especially irritating when I needed to go to the bathroom and a lady next to me was asleep the whole flight. Oh well. Other than that, everything was fine and nothing went wrong.
Service
Departing Flight: I have seen many people complain about the quality of the service. During my experience, the service was pretty nice. The waitresses were nice and helpful, they came by with the drink trays about four times during the trip, if I remember correctly, as well as snacks a few times, and of course the meals. They were all polite and easy to interact with. I noticed there were a few passengers that required special assistance with boarding the plane, and they seemed to help them nicely from what I saw. So, I have absolutely no complaints about the service.
Returning Flight: I don't think I could say anything different about my experience for the returning flight, the service was the same great service as it was on the first flight.
Food
Departing Flight: The food was... well, not so great. A few snacks were handed out, including some odd spicy chips. The dinner meal was kind of bad. There was a choice between chicken, vegetarian, and another meat-based meal but I forgot exactly what it was now. I chose the chicken meal. The chicken was pretty good, nice and juicy and prepared in a nice sauce. There were also some small potatoes that were kind of good. I also ate the small portions of salad, fruit, and bread, but the rest of the meal was weird and gross. There was a bowl of yellow stuff with a kind of gravy texture, it looked like a bowl of puke. The breakfast meal was alright but not that great either. It included a croissant and fruit. The food was all just cheaply made, it didn't taste that bad. I've only been on a plane a couple other times when I was much younger, but I imagine most airplane food is of about the same quality. The drinks offered were pretty standard. The couple of times that they handed out small packaged drinks, they gave you small water and orange juice boxes. The drink tray had a selection of alcohol, water, milk, and a few different kinds of juice and soda. They also offered coffee and tea a few times. The food and drinks were reasonable altogether.
Returning Flight: The food was rather good on the returning flight. The first snack was a bag of paprika-flavored potato chips. The dinner meal this time was really good. Again, you had a choice between a chicken-based meal, another meat-based meal (beef, probably), and vegetarian. I got the chicken meal again, and this time it was a different combination of food. The chicken was a breast with some nice sauce and came along with rice and a nice mixture of vegetables (cut up potatoes, peas, and some other things). There was also another thing that I have no idea what it was but it tasted pretty good. It was sweet and looked like it was a variety of shredded vegetables compacted into a rectangular block. Who knows, but it was good. And it also, again, came with salad, fruit, and bread. The meal later on was more of a lunch meal, rather than breakfast like it was on the previous flight. It consisted of a sandwich, yogurt, bread, salad, and a small chocolate candy. The drinks were the same, standard stuff they served on the other flight.
Entertainment
Departing Flight: A few have said that that entertainment on the flight was terrible. I personally liked it. There are tiny (15" monitors, I think) televisions attached to the ceiling, and they played a variety of videos consisting of programs from India. There were all kinds of things, everything from music videos to soap operas to action movies. This might sound dumb to you at first, but I enjoyed it because all of it was so completely bizarre, I spent a lot of time watching it. The televisions also often displayed a set of statistics about the flight. It included a map with a marker representing the plane showing where we were flying at any given time. It displayed other things like the temperature outside, the amount of time left there is for the flight, the time in the current position and the time in the destination, the distance already covered and the distance still left, etc. I spent a lot of time watching that too, I liked it. They also had headphones with different channels playing music but the quality was horrible and the music itself didn't seem like it was much better, so I didn't bother with that. There was also a pretty neat magazine in the back of the chair that had India related stuff in it.
Returning Flight: I was disappointed by the entertainment this time because they didn't display the statistics on the televisions like they did on the previous flight. I really liked those. Other than that, everything was the same.
Environment
Departing Flight: The general environment inside the plane seemed rather standard. Not exactly the most luxurious experience ever but it wasn't hideous and disgusting by any means. The seats were decently comfortable, though a bit dirty-looking. By that, I mean that there were some stains on a few of the seats I saw, but I'm sure they clean everything between flights. Each seat had a blanket and two pillows, and a paper covering the head of the chair. The bathrooms are tiny but they get the job done. It was rather clean for an airplane bathroom, I expected much worse. It just had a toilet, a sink, a mirror, and some boxes on the wall and under the sink that included several types of tissues, paper towels, toilet paper, etc. It's only big enough to fit those things and one person inside. The baby changing table is attached to the wall of the plane near a set of seats. I had no complaints about any aspect of the environment. It seemed a bit old and used, but at the same time well taken care of and cleaned properly.
Returning Flight: Same thing here, nothing was different on the returning flight.
Conclusion
I've read several of the other reviews for Air-India on this site. I think the ratings are way off balance, so I wrote this to put some things into perspective for any future customers for this airline.
Like I said before, when you see a product that is cheaper than most others, I think it can be safely assumed that it won't be the most comfortable or best quality possible. For example, a cheap brand of store brand toilet paper as opposed to a more expensive top name brand of toilet paper. The cheap kind might be thin or a bit rough, while the more expensive kind is thicker, softer, and feels better. But in the end, they both accomplish the same thing, right?
From the reviews I have read, other users give bad ratings for this airline for things including a dirty environment, cramped seats, bad service, unsatisfactory entertainment, and even things like there being no blankets. Sure, a dirty environment is gross, cramped seats are uncomfortable, bad service is irritating, unsatisfactory entertainment is boring, and no blankets is...well...cold. But, so what? Would you rather spend hundreds of dollars more for an airline to have improved quality of those type of things? I mean, are you sure you want to spend $400 more so you can have some better food, a few good movies to watch, a spotless environment, etc? The point is, yes, it's not perfect, there are a lot of things "wrong" with it, but that's the reason it's cheap, and the reason it's cheap is so that people that can't afford spending those extra couple hundreds of dollars can still get where they need to go. And while many have had bad experiences with Air India, the types of bad experiences they had (like flight delays, problems with the plane, etc) have about the same potential of happening with other airlines.
I rated Air India as average because it's not the most exciting and pleasant flight experience, but it's not so terrible that I would recommend avoiding it. It gets the job done, it does what it was intended to do. It flies you across the planet to your destination and gets you there safely.
This airline is recommended to people who want to save some money and don't mind being a little uncomfortable during the few hours of the flight. But if you want to (and can afford to) be completely comfortable, have nice food and entertainment, and all of that, then choose a different airline, though you'll be spending several hundred dollars more.
I'll need to fly the same route several more times, the soonest one being a few months from now, and I will definitely be using this airline for those trips. Highly recommended to people who need to fly as cheapest as possible!
Amount I spent:
$867.30 (including taxes/fees) for a roundtrip flight.
Other flights for the same trip cost between $1200 and $1500, so I saved about $400 by using this airline.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
lana519
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Member: Lana
Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 1 member
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