Air India – The looming waterloo for the TATA Group

Warren Buffet famously quipped - “If a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk back in the early 1900s, he should have shot Orville Wright. He would have saved his progeny money. But seriously, the airline business has been extraordinary. It has eaten up capital over the past century like almost no other business because people seem to keep coming back to it and putting fresh money in. You’ve got huge fixed costs, you’ve got strong labor unions and you’ve got commodity pricing. That is not a great recipe for success.”

I have always found the middle eastern airlines (Qatar, Emirates, Etihad) alarmingly consistent, punctual and hospitable. But this time while returning from SFO, I booked a direct flight to Bangalore and Air India’s AI176 seemed like a great option. While the old bitter memories of the erstwhile Air India (Pre Tata) were still fresh, the general pride about Tata’s taking over a fledgling business, the full page ads of welcome back et al, encouraged me to demonstrate my loyalty towards a home brand.

I made 4 naïve assumptions and had only 4 expectations when I boarded.

Assumption 1 / Expectation 1

Tatas know what they do and have the capacity to affect immediate incremental improvements. So it was obvious that I expected that the basics ( Hospitality, Welcome, Charm, Friendliness, Food, Cleanliness ) will be comparable to the best airlines.

Assumption 2 / Expectation 2

With IHCL as a halo brand, TATAs must have transferred a great guy from IHCL or Vistara to do the most basic quickfixes that are customer facing, ( Uniforms, welcome greetings, body language etc ) to demonstrate that the ailing Maharaja is now being taken care of and is returning back to a reasonable flyable health.

Assumption 3 / Expectation 3

TATAs reek of over-the-top propriety towards their employees, customers and shareholders. So whatever happens their communication will always be transparent and truthful. And when you buy a TATA product, or own a TATA company – as a shareholder, or use their airline, you will always hear the truth – and nothing but the truth. The 12 excruciating hrs when they ripped my peaceful world apart was exemplary.

Assumption 4 / Expectation 4

Things go wrong – that’s natural. But great companies and great brands that love to last generations, make the wrongs - right. They say sorry. And they know how to do service recovery. And lastly they mend and make an aggrieved customer happy. 

This ill fated flight and my ‘mera Baharat mahaan’ kind of loyalty not only proved me wrong, but also convinced me that conglomerates that become too large, that aren’t nimble to quickly evolve and improve, that don’t really treat their customer as GOD, sort out the temporary mess at whatever cost (to protect the brand promise like Amazon does), eventually fade away into sunsets of oblivion over a period of time.

And Air India will bring the entire house of TATAs down. Just like Kingfisher did Mallaya.

“How dare you board my aircraft”

I have been the CEO of some of the best rated hospitality brands and can spot good/bad body language of associates from a mile. “How dare you……” needed to change on Air India on DAY ONE – but it didn’t. If someone has travelled enough, understands hospitality, and knows what a true welcome entails ( as I learnt through my close association with Relais and Chateaux during my corporate life ) AIR INDIA 176 was an epitome of tired and disinterested crew.

The Indian ‘Namaste’ has a form and function and its grace was appreciated all over the world – esp during pandemic. But the namaste on AI 176 was an insult and disgrace on the Indian tradition of lifting ones folded hands and greeting someone with a welcoming smile.

If camera recordings are in place and Mr. N Chandra and Mr. Campbell Wilson take the trouble of summoning these recordings – and I assume that they get what I am alluding to – they would ground the entire airline till they get the Namaste right.

The AIR INDIA namaste presently seems as if a 23 KG weight has been tied to the hands of the welcoming crew that prevents their hands to be lifted above the hip level and each one has been briefed by the famous Mary Shelley with every gesture of welcome expressed with such disdain that the first few minutes on the airplane seem like an ordeal.

“How dare you board my aircraft – did you not have anything better to do”

“How dare you expect a clean seat and a clean aircraft”

The first thing a passenger would do on a 17 hr flight would be to empty ones pockets and relieve oneself of phones, gadgets and pocket accoutrements into the sleeve / pocket at the front. And entire microcosm of food trappings, grains of biscuit, food residue plastic and paper was amazing. It just seemed that the last time a vacuum was used on that seat was when the aircraft left Everett – years ago. I felt really sorry for the invisible bacteria and viruses in that ecosystem. Disturbing their peace and years of evolution seemed criminal. That little pocket seemed to ask me. Are you real? Did you not have anything better to do than to use this pocket to keep your stupid gadets? I almost felt sorry and derided myself at having disturbed the calm and quiet of that microcosm.

I vowed to myself – never ever to try and use the airline seat pocket if I ever happen to travel AIR INDIA again.

The start of the real story

The flight that was originally scheduled to depart at approx. 2030 was rescheduled to 2330 a couple of hrs before the departure. Its really quite understandable that flights get delayed. But passengers plan to reach the airport as per original schedule because of lack of alternatives in a fast moving, busy city like SFO. So when I reached at the usual 1730 (standard 3 hrs before an international flight) I struggled and was refused a check in as the check in time had also been pushed away by 3 hrs. So basically you are on your own for 3 hrs without food and water (SFO doesn’t have anything wrt F&B before security). The three efforts that I made to speak to a seemingly senior AI employee were met with retribution as she was busy briefing her staff rather than making an effort to respond to a passenger, who was just trying to request her to give some clarity and request for a check in because – I was hungry and tired..

When we finally checked in and I boarded many hrs later, all I wanted was to put my ear plugs to use and sleep.

After discharging my duty towards protecting the microcosm in the crevices of the seat pocket, I hoped that I would wake up in Bangalore and requested the hostesses not to disturb me through the flight with any food or alcohol service.

The mystery of the luggage mashup

There was a time in my life where I would take a flight every 3^rd day but never did I ever hear that luggage of another flight got boarded onto mine. But when the captain announced nearly 2 hrs into my slumber, without a take-off,  that there was a mashup with the luggage of another flight – I thought – wow India is so much better – to have never encountered an incident like this.

About to take off for a good 3 hrs.

After hearing a few times that things are going to be just fine and we are taking off in minutes, we finally got to know at nearly 0300 hrs that the flight has a technical issue and stands cancelled. So much for customer communication.

One of the life and career lessons I have learnt after being in customer service for decades is – Don’t keep your customer in dark. Tell him all that you know, keep him informed and if there is a screw up – be honest about it.

AIR INDIA needs to learn that.

What happened next was the mother of all Eff Ups

The 8 ordeals that no passenger should every go through

Whilst  The Maharaja ensured that I did

I must confess that I have never ever encountered a cancelled flight and had checked in all my jumpers and puffers as I am very familiar with home (Bangalore) weather and assumed that the cabin blanket (provided by the airline) would suffice.

 1.      While deboarding ( without a jumper at 0400 hrs approx ) I shared my predicament with the hostess and requested to take one blanket even if I had to pay as I didn’t have a warm clothing and offered to hand over the same to the ground staff the moment I got my luggage. The hostess presented my request to another lady and she came across so harshly as if I had requested her for her kidney. She almost made me feel as if she had caught me stealing the same in front of the other passengers. If I had just decided to pack it in my hand baggage ( because of the exigent circumstances ) the matter would have been over.

2.   2.   On my way out I saw staff and some enthusiastic selfie obsessed individuals taking fotos of the plane from the aerobridge – and I learnt (unverified) that the main issue was that the plane was pushed back without disengaging from the aerobridge etc that damaged it to a point of un-flyable.

3.   3.   The station manager or the lady in charge was clueless about ways to handle nearly 400 passengers and infants and senior citizens. The commotion at the check in counter (where we all were advised to go) was a mess and there was no solution or an alternative. All she said was – you can find alternative flights – find hotels and basically what she meant was – I don’t know what the hell to do.

4.   4.   There are tens of hotels in the vicinity of SFO International airport. All that was required was for her to call a nearby hotel ( I refuse to believe that airlines don’t have a connect ) and book 100-150 rooms – only on ‘pay if one uses basis’ – any hotel at that hour would have firstly given a great deal to Air India and secondly this was the most commonsensical thing to do. All that needed to be done was to tell all the passengers that you can land up at this hotel, show the boarding pass and the passport and your bed and breakfast is taken care of.

5.   5.   Imagine parents with wailing children at that hour – some travelling with wheelchair bound parents, having to book hotels, taxis and figure out what to do.

6.   6.    A paper was handed – an unsigned paper which said that all expenses, hotels , taxis and diff of fares for the booked flight will be paid upon submitting the claim to the email address (dutymgr.sfo@airindia.com) here.
Could the station manager not have shown some initiative to give 3 – 4 flight alternatives to all the passengers (everyone had the same destination – Bangalore) and an offer to figure this out – rather than leave everyone in a lurch.

7.  7.    If someone is awake for nearly 23-24 hrs, not able to reach ones home, not knowing how and when one would – the mind and body starts reacting in a diff manner. Being tired, sleepless, helpless and solutionless at the hands of The Maharaja is not only frustrating – but immensely disappointing.

I haven’t stopped cursing myself for the choices of travel I made by taking this flight to get to my home.

8.   I finally had the nicest and punctual experience with Qatar to get back home.

9.   8.   This ordeal could have been forgotten as a blip in one’s busy life if The Maharaja would have just said sorry and paid off all the expenses, sent an email to the aggrieved passengers and brought the ordeal to a closure. But its been nearly 20 days. I have sent 3 emails to this (dutymgr.sfo@airindia.com) address and raised a ticket on the AIR India website 3 times with 3 follow ups on the ticket raised. None of the emails have bounced. And there is no response whatsoever. I have got no acknowledgement and I don’t really know who is the real custodian of AIR INDIA – Its definitely not the present CEO.

Its safe to assume that @TCS would be managing the IT setup of AIR INDIA and its rather surprising that there is no internal redflag in the entire system since nearly 20 days that a customer is struggling just to get a basic response and resolution to a situation.

A company that’s running “On the mercy of the almighty” , guzzles capital, operates in a hypercompetitive  environment, has recently placed the largest order for aircrafts in the history of aviation industry better get its Namaste and basics right or someone in TATAs will have to find a villa next to Lady Walk Mansion in not so distant future.

Long Live The Maharaja.