[srisai2k3]

Never Air India again ......... worst experience ........0 Rating
It is a nightmare to travel with Air India on International flight especially with kids
The travel times are long, cabins are not equipped well for International long journey travel, there are issues handling baggage, there were issues with check-in process.
Very unprofessional and zero customer service
Details: -
I travelled with Air India round trip from SFO-VSKP (Onward 24th from SFO->BOM->BLR->VSKP and return 17th from Visakhapatnam thru BLR to SFO) with my family with my 2 young kids. Least to say it was a very, very, very bad experience for me and decided never to travel in Air India
Long flight time and late arrival
Flight hours from SFO-BOM are approximately 20hrs with stop at Vienna for fuel and flight arrived late by 2 hrs. at Mumbai airport all this inside an inadequately equipped Air India cabin (details further below)
Flight hours from BLR-SFO were more than 22hrs with fuel stop at Delhi and flight arrived at SFO 2hrs 30 minutes late
The fuel stop is the most annoying part of the return journey as the plane landed in Delhi at 10AM in the morning and left Delhi at 1:30PM. It was already late to arrive at Delhi from BLR.
All the while passengers must sit in the plane.

Check-in issues
In the onward journey for the flight from Mumbai to Visakhapatnam via Bangalore at Mumbai airport they gave boarding pass only till BLR citing technical issues
At Bengaluru airport we have take all our baggage out and recheck-in and clear security
And again, board plan to Vishakhapatnam
And there was some issue providing boarding pass for Vishakhapatnam the staff at the counter were rude and could not provide the boarding pass
I have literally fight with the Air India Express staff to get boarding pass to Visakhapatnam.
How on earth can this happen? They could neither do through check-in of my luggage nor provide boarding pass for the full journey
Really ……. Really ………… frustrating

On the return journey at the Visakhapatnam airport (VSKP-BLR-SFO) Air India Express staff could not do through check-in of luggage again citing technical issues.
Because of this we need to collect our baggage and again re-check in Bangalore
I raised this issue with Air India staff at Bangalore, but they rudely said you should ask Air India Express and not us. This I totally don’t understand as they are same company or related companies and there is absolutely lack of coordination between them
Post check-in the immigration team would not allow us as we could enter only 4 hrs prior to flight departure and we have wait 2 hrs. outside before immigration let us in
Baggage issues
Torn baggage
On onward journey the baggage we received at Mumbai Airport is torn with some of the belongings in bag coming out. I approached the Airport staff and after 2 hours of struggle they provided me another bag and all this after 20hrs of flying with kids and 2 hrs. flight delay. Because of this delay our onward journey program was completely disturbed.
Lost Baggage
After 22 + hrs of travel in a very inadequate Air India flight cabin we reached SFO airport cleared immigration only to wait almost 1hr to know that 2 Baggage’s are missing
There was no clear communication by the Air India staff at the belt which left us stranded with kids for more than 2 hours and we were asked to wait in huge queue for PIR.
Since I am already having issues with kids I could no longer wait and left the airport with my 2 Baggage’s missing
Long queue is because one single Air India staff dealing with lot of passengers.
The explanation provided is some 96+ baggage’s did not board the flight at Delhi as they could not accommodate. Delhi is fuel stop only as per the Air India announcement how can they leave luggage at Delhi if they are already checked-in and loaded at Bangalore


Inadequately equipped Cabins
In Internation flight with flying hours more than 20hrs the cabin inside the plan is very inadequately equipped
In the onward journey – the infotainment screen is either not working or slow to respond, and crew cannot help to resolve the issue.
In the return journey we could not turn on the reading lights as the remote that controls it is not functional and 90% of screens are not functional and they asked us to use Vistara Wi-Fi and our own devices
If this would have been any other developed country, they would never accept such a journey that Air India is offering to its international customers. Looks like they believe they can get away with any sort of lapses with Indian customers.
Overall …… It Is Worst Experience of My Life to Travel In Air India and Recommend Not to Travel with Air India
I wish Air India will improve thought I haven’t seen any signs on it since last 5 years of my travel ( 6 round trips from SFO)