Air India

✅ Verified Review | I have received a particularly poor experience from Air India and would like to pass this feedback onto other travellers as I don't want anyone else to suffer as I have done. Events as follows: 1) Outbound flight Mumbai to Goa - scheduled itinerary change, ie the flight was moved back - this didn't cause me a massive problem but was symptomatic of further issues ahead. 2) Return flight Goa to Mumbai - frequent scheduled itinerary change emails and an email for me to change to an earlier flight (by 13hrs). The changes reduced the window for my connecting flight back to the UK, however Air India said I would still catch the flight ok. Flight was actually delayed by 3 hours, consequently I missed my flight back to London. Air India said that because the flights were bought on different tickets they would not get me home. Additional flight purchased to London as a result. My hold luggage got to Mumbai but has been lost, hence, I have no hesitation in rating as Air India as a 1/10 and have since learned they are notorious, please be warned and do not be attracted by their headline cheap flights.

✅ Verified Review | Kathmandu to Heathrow via Delhi. It was my first flight with Air India. It was good connection flight for me so wanted to try Air India. I am not fussy passenger. It was fine when I flew to Kathmandu but way back had a horrible experience. The crew members have very bad attitude and are very rude. When first snacks peneuts and soft drink was served, I requested the cabin crew that I would like to have cup of tea insead of soft drink please and she said that I have to wait till after dinner for tea. I seated to wait after dinner. I had transit flight got headache. I went to washroom and ask a gentleman if possible to have cup of tea please, he said " of course". The lady who refused me before was came to me and asked why I am asking him tea as she just told me to wait after dinner. I told her that sorry but I am allowed to have tea. This is a small incident. Dinner was served. It was a different lady walking through by my seat. I stopped her and request her may I please have cup of water, she was very angry. I thought she did not hear me properly, I asked her a bit louder again. She started arguing with me why I am shouting at her. I said I am not shouting you I thought you did not hear me. I would like to have cup of water for my tablets please. She never came back. Very bad service. My TV remote control did not work and I did not bother to request to change the seat, but refusing for a cup of water is impossible. I won't fly with Air India again. It was a horrible experience.

❎ Unverified | Flew Air India direct from New York to Delhi round trip. Flight departed late both times. Air India did a poor job of queue management both times. Even though they announced boarding by row, they still let anyone board regardless of seat number. This is especially frustrating because the predominantly indian crowd on either flight seemed to enjoy pushing their way through while ignoring the line of people actually waiting patiently. The seats were uncomfortable and didn't have enough cushioning especially when reclined. It felt like you were sitting on metal when the seat was reclined. This made a 14 hour flight almost painful. The bathrooms were just gross. In the first flight, there was pee on the bathroom floor that did not get cleaned up for the entire flight. The 'cleaning' by flight attendants involved regularly spraying air freshener in the lavatories. On the return flight, there wasn't even a soap dispenser! The soap was in a plastic water bottle with a crude hole punched on the top. The entertainment options were a coin toss. On one of the flights, the TV simply did not work even after they tried to reset it multiple times. On the flight that it did actually work, the entertainment options in English were limited and outdated. On the plus side however, there were 3 meal services (United only does 2 on a similar length flight). And the food tasted decent. Not good, but not bad either.

✅ Verified Review | Colombo to Moscow via Delhi. What a simply awful carrier, my niece flew to Sri Lanka for 6 months returning home to Moscow for Christmas. All four flights times and dates were changed. Even after calling their help desk and getting the flights changed to what was needed, they were changed again. Now to cap it all her flights back in May have also been changed, leaving Colombo Fri 19th May, arriving Delhi at 1205, so far so good? She then has to overnight in Delhi for 31 hours, leaving Delhi on Sat 20th May at 1910. When I called their help line to ask why she could not have a seat on the 1910hrs flight out on the 19th, I was immediately passed on to someone else, who after putting me on hold for over 10 minutes told me they could do nothing about it and to call Colombo. I have never spoken to more unhelpful people who clearly could not care less that a young woman will be all alone in Delhi and not knowing where to get a good hotel etc. Disgraceful does not even begin to cover their attitude. I would not recommend this airline or its people to anyone.

✅ Verified Review | Flew Birmingham to Delhi with Air India. Decent plane but poorly organised check in, left one hour late and landed late because of fog they said, missed our connecting flight to Varanasi and they were no help at all. Inflight entertainment poor, grumpy staff except a couple, didn't monitor the cabin, everything was an effort. One screen didn't work at all on the return and earphone plug on way out was damaged. Never had one of their flights that took off on time. Would never use them again even on a direct flight.

✅ Verified Review | Worst experience ever with Air India! I traveled alone with my 9 month old son from Frankfurt to Delhi and onto Sydney! It's a very long and exhausting flight and I think everybody knows with a baby it's even harder! The first problems started when they weren't be able to print the boarding pass for my son. They kept me 2 hours in front of the check-in that I couldn't care properly for my son. Just waiting. Without toilet, food or anything! After this 2 hours they gave me just the boarding pass until Delhi and I had to run carrying my son and all the luggage to the boarding as this had started already. Really stressful! My son was starving and already to tired to eat. Luckily I ordered a bassinet in advance for the whole flight. When we arrived in Delhi we had a 3 hours stopover. And again they kept us 3 hours in front of the security check because of the boarding pass. No toilets, no food again - just hard chairs to wait on. I was really desperate as my son was just crying. They didn't care. I got more and more stressed. At the end they wrote a manual boarding pass and I had to run again to the boarding to get my 12 hours flight. Terrible!

✅ Verified Review | This flight from Bodhgaya to Delhi was the latest of about 20 domestic flights sectors completed with Air India over the last 3 - 4 years. The level of service has remained consistent in all areas, with some aspects of service stronger than others. This flight was originally due to depart Bodhgaya at 14.35h arriving in Delhi at 16.25h. An initial delay to a revised 16.00h departure was notified by e-mail several hours in advance. Check-in queue management at Bodhgaya airport was poor but agent service was good once you eventually got to the check-in desk. After further delay at Bodhgaya airport the flight eventually departed shortly after 18.00h and arrived at Delhi at about 20.00h. Not a single delay announcement was made at Bodhgaya airport and the information board simply showed the word 'delay' next to the flight number. We had no idea how long the delay would be until we saw our aircraft land. Except for an expensive coffee kiosk there were no customer facilities while waiting. The flight itself was straightforward and typical of one on Air India's short-haul A320 fleet with friendly, patient, efficient cabin crew and reasonably comfortable seating in a slightly grubby cabin. A simple in-flight snack was served. No announcements from the captain except an abrupt order for cabin crew to take their seats for take off and again for landing. Cabin crew announcements included a sincere apology for the delay. Arrived at Delhi's Terminal 3 where we exited through the international arrivals section because our flight had originated in Yangon, Burma, before picking up passengers in Bodhgaya. This meant that the domestic passengers among us had to join a long slow-moving queue to clear, bizarrely, passport control, where just two desks were dedicated to clearing many domestic passengers, presumably from several flights. It took more than an hour just to get as far as the baggage hall. The lesson is to remember to leave plenty of time if you take a domestic flight with Air India before connecting to an international flight.

✅ Verified Review | I was pleasantly surprised with my trip with Air India from Mumbai to Goa. It was such a comfortable journey. I have flown previously on International sectors with AI, but, never experienced such comfort. To start off, the crew were polite to passengers. However, they could have toned down their laughter and language when in the Galley. Meal was reasonable for a short domestic flight. IFE was non-existent as the screens were covered with a headrest cover. Overall, I really liked this flight because they depart from Terminal 2 at Mumbai and because I noticed a positive change in the crew's approach towards passengers. I would not hesitate to try them again on the narrow body planes for domestic flights.

✅ Verified Review | London to Vadodara via Delhi. I last traveled in Air India in January 2014 and the service was horrible. This time service was really good. Staff was happy to help, were very polite and they were young and fresh. Good food and good service. I was very surprised by all this and there is a massive difference in the service and for better.

✅ Verified Review | I traveled Milan to Chennai via Delhi. Not much to complain except the total lack of communication for baggage picking and delay announcements: in Milan I was told (several times) that my luggage would have been sent directly to Chennai, but I had to collect it in Delhi and checking it in again before departing to Chennai. Moreover, the flight to Chennai was heavily delayed and we had no info from Air India while waiting for it. Seat was comfortable enough, I had better experience but there was room enough for my legs (I'm 1.83m tall). Food was actually very good: I opted for the vegetarian meal and it was tasty and abundant. InFlight entertainment could be better: plenty of Indian movies and old international ones but few choices for the new international movies. That said, since the ticket was quite cheap Air India is a good value for money option.