A lot of the hate which Air India gets in India is justified. Its an apathetic Indian national airline which parades as our national carrier, causing embarrassment globally. In the beginning I never understood why it got so much hate, the connectivity was pretty good even within India. For example, there are some remote sectors which only Air India will fly. So I appreciated this from them. However, this impression then slowly went on to corrode itself.
In 2023, I invested in an SBI Air India Signature Credit Card, its a good card which essentially means that all your points can be converted to Air India miles in 1:1 ratio. This is great, I fly a lot and it helps to get some Frequent Flyer points which I can redeem. Even if the airline is not good, who can say no to a complimentary flight. So I got it and I spent a fair bit using the Credit Card which meant I had a lot of points. Now, came the time where I had to redeem these points. I redeemed all my points into the Air India Maharaja club points and then I try to login into the Air India app to book my flight ticket. This is where the nightmare began.
I tried logging in and the app literally said, “We are facing technical issues, please try again later”. I tried using my registered email address, registered phone number and nothing helped. No OTP was sent and the technical error message continued to pop up. So since the app said try again later, I tried after a few hours, a few days and few weeks. No luck! Obviously the trip I had to take I eventually ended up taking IndiGo and completing my trip. I could not wait for Air India to figure out their “Technical issues” before I can use my frequent flyer points. But it was very upsetting to have converted all my credit card points into Air India Maharaja Club points and unable to use them. These are points I earned and when the moment arose where I needed them, the app would not login.
Utterly frustrated, I finally had no choice but to contact the customer service of Air India which I knew was another activity to raise my blood pressure. So I write with a detailed challenge that I faced and how the Air India app does not allow me to login. To not much of my surprise, the first response which I received from Air India was to “try again” and “Send screenshots”. So then I went ahead and tried logging in, received the error message and took a screenshot so that the Gods at Air India can believe that I am not able to login.
This is where it got interesting. The next reply I got from them was a total shock. So what they come around and ask me to do is to send them a Government issued ID like an Aadhar card or something. This was crazy. Why do they need this? I have used other Frequent Flyer programs. Indigo also has its Blue Chip, I do not recall them requiring my Government ID. Anyway, I do not have the energy to fight them at this point so I just email them over my Aadhar card. After a day or so, they finally get back to me saying that I should try logging in after 24-48 hours and that it should work.
Eventually after this email resolution, the app did work but it left me with a bitter experience. On the day I needed to book a ticket, the app suddenly does not allow me to login and use my points. If I had never escalated this to customer service, I would never had learnt that they were waiting for me to provide a Government ID proof. My conclusion is that Air India launched the glossy campaign with “Change is in the Air” but the only change is that the pain has transferred from rude staff to poorly maintained aeroplanes and App. If Air India cannot even create a reliable app, what are they really capable of? And then why waste all this money on the “Change is in the air” ads instead of actually fixing things that don’t work.
Air India flight AI171 Tragedy
Lets talk about the AI171 tragedy which claimed 241 lives. Has anyone heard about what went wrong? Where is the investigation report. Its almost six months since the air crash and the public has no information whatsoever on what went wrong. Air Crash investigations are serious business and in the US and other countries it is taken extremely serious to investigate the root cause of each and every airline disaster. However, with this AI171 there is absolutely no news on the status of the investigation or the contents of the blackbox. That’s Air India for you and the DGCA which enables such lax safety standards for the passengers flying on this national carrier. This is despite Air India rattling on about and spending millions of ad campaigns insisting they have changed.
If you ever fly any of their aircraft, nothing has changed. Air India aircraft are still dirty, seats trays are still broken and the service efficiency leaves much to be improved.
Air India destroying what worked: Vistara
Vistara was a great airline in working. Customers truly enjoyed flying it. Finally, it looked like an airline that could bring back the joy of flying. Indigo is good and functional, but Vistara showed that Indians will spend money on tickets if there is some value. Unfortunately, good times in Indian airspace cannot last. The Air India merger with Vistara has taken one of the most promising airlines away and turned into yet another mediocre Air India fleet service.
In fact, the Air India merger of Vistara has not only affected customers. Air India is so poorly run that it has managed to drag down another professionally run airlines along with it.
Air India’s performance, has directly affected Singapore Airlines. Singapore Airlines, which holds a 25.1% stake in the carrier while Tata Sons owns the remaining 74.9%. It attributed the decline primarily to accounting losses from Air India. “…while the Group’s share of results of associated companies was S$417 million lower year-on-year, notably reflecting Air India’s losses which were not included in the previous year net profit,” the Singapore Airlines said.
Ironically, SIA achieved record high revenues (SGD 9.68 billion) during this period, but these gains were eroded by its share of Air India’s significant operating losses.
This is truly incredible, to be so bad at what you do. That while Air India struggles as an Airline company on its own, but it also manages to make a significant dent on the profits of other airlines. All said and done, the only “change” in the air that anyone who flies Air India knows is the number of pain points are more than ever before. Earlier it was just within the airline, but now its their app, their loyalty program and air safety.