Indian vs US Air Travel

The airline industry world wide is going thru hell. Rising fuel costs, lesser number of travellers and what have you. However, what amazes me is the glaring difference between the United States' based airline companies and the ones back home.

The horror of travelling in the US begins at the check-in counter itself. The reps have some sort of an air as if they were doing us a favour checking us in. These days there are more number of auto check in kiosks than there are people checking in customers. At least the kiosks are more polite !!

Well...once your checked in you basically head into the long lines at security and are subjected to "a random search" by the airport security most of the time. I don't know how the "random" selection is done. However, I learnt, by personal experience that you basically get selected for the special treatment if you are from the sub-continent or surrounding countries. However, after years of travelling the security finally accepts that you are not a threat to the country and are not selected for a random selection any more.

You then head to the departure gate and board the plane to an artificially welcoming host / hostess who are called 'cabin crew'. Then begins the on board experience. Wow !! On flights that are even as long as 5 hours all that the airline serves are food boxes that could be bought ! They serve it with some soft drink / juice (which is thankfully free). For flights of a lesser duration forget about any food at all. They simply throw a minuscule packet of pretzel or peanut with a drink and thats it. A far away cry from the "Kingfisher Experience" !!

Cheers to the Indian Airline Industry for top notch service and providing us with a truly world class experience.

'O dear....O'Hare' !!

The monitor on Chicago's O'Hare International airport for my flight to Toronto read 'Delayed'. The time of the delay was a good 2 hours. To me this is just one of the hundreds of instances when flights into and out one of the United States' busiest airports, were delayed. I always assume that there would be a delay on my flight departing from Chicago. This assumption is based on years of flying out of this airport. I remember only ONE instance when the flight departed 'On-Time'. I'm quite sure that that was a mistake as well. Honestly !! The rest of the times flights were always delayed.

I just don't get it. How can an airport function like this? I love the city Chicago and love to come here. But I hate to transit this airport coz of these delays. I get to the final destination late, exhausted and frustrated with the experience. One more aspect of this airport is the baggage handling. You can be assured your bags would be misplaced on a connecting flight IF the connection is close (less than 45 mins apart). I have been unfortunate to have this happen to me a couple of times.

I have no complaints against the 'windy city' and actually love it. It is amongst my favourite cities in the world. Only, there must be someone who could do something about this issue at O'Hare.

The dreaded flight !

I have been fortunate to travel a bit around the world. However, as most frequent travellers, especially the coach travellers would know travelling in today's times is a punishment rather than fun.

I have been subject to the punishment over and over again in the last several years. The seats have become smaller, the leg space reduced, the meals lesser, the hostesses less friendly. I always try to get on a "Star Alliance" network airline which gives me special treatment due to the amount of business I have given them. However, on the current trip to the United States I was booked on Emirates. One of the sectors was a 16 1/2 hour flight from Dubai to Houston non-stop. This scared the heck out of me. To add to it I wasn't even assigned an isle seat (which I normally do with the travel agent to ensure some freedom in movement). At the airport check in, inspite of pleading with the check in rep I was informed that there are no isles available and that he would put in a request so the reps in Dubai would try and assign an isle when I reach Dubai.

I proceeded to the transfer desk at Dubai and came to terms with the thought of a cramped up middle seat and a screwed up flight. The agent all of a sudden took my boarding card and replaced it with a different looking new one. I thought it was another seat assignment and looked. After repeatedly looking to make sure I was ecstatic as I was assigned a Business Class seat. Yes !! A Business Class seat for a 16 freaking hour flight. All thru until the cabin doors were closed and the plane moved I was hoping that there was no mistake and no other person came up and took my seat. I was reminded of an instance of the same nature that happened a while back. However, nothing of that happened this time around and I enjoyed the flight in great comfort.