Air India

Not Verified | The worst customer service. We booked a flight for a later date which had to be preponed. We called the customer service department and requested to reschedule the flight to a month earlier. We paid the fare difference and in spite of all that we were not given the itinerary. We called them for three days literally, 20 times. Now, they are asking us to pay more amount. We requested for full refund and they are only giving us 600 rupees out of 6000. I am going to make sure that I never book any tickets from this airline.

✅ Trip Verified | I booked the flight mainly because of the cheap fare compared to other airlines (due to covid only a few options were available). Check-in and boarding were smooth. They served good food on time, however, did not serve any drinks (coffee/tea/ alcohol). It was at the back of the airlines for self-service. Cabin crews were good to help. The most disastrous incident was not working og inflight entertainment. I just can not imagine that time how to pass nearly 14 hrs without any entertainment. I would download some movies/ songs if I knew earlier. Air India does not provide inflight internet. In most of the seats, inflight entertainment system was not working. Touch screens are hardly working. On the second leg (Delhi to Kolkata), it was of approx 2hrs flight without any inflight entertainment/internet service. Also, the air conditioning was not properly working on the ground. It was very suffocating after wearing mask and face shield. Air India is one of the two domestic airlines that provide hot meals. But they serve the only veg meal. The meals were so so.

Not Verified | Flight was okay to travel as we don't have many choices in Pandemic. Staff were helpful. However, none of the phone chargers were working because they were all broken. I was lucky that my phone was charged and did not need to use it. In this day and age, all information and important documents are on the phone so phone chargers should be available.

✅ Trip Verified | After avoiding Air India for years, I was forced to spend my hard earned money on them for a round trip between IAD and MAA because of the Indian government forbidding sixth freedom traffic under the covid air bubble agreements. I had very low expectations, and Air India was as bad as I feared. The Indian government should get out of the business of running an airline as soon as possible. Every aspect of this trip was subpar, and given a choice, I cannot imaging why anybody would ever travel on this airline. Here are all the ways in which they were bad: 1) Their web site is terrible, and it wouldn't accept my Lufthansa frequent flyer number, even though there is a section for entering partner airlines membership numbers. The web site also wouldn't allow me to request a special meal, and it gave absolutely no explanation for why. From some google research, I realized this might be due to covid precautions 2) I made 2 separate calls to their customer service center to try and address the above issues. The amount of background noise during both calls made it seem like their reps were sitting in the middle of New Delhi railway station for their calls. I could barely hear or understand what the reps were saying. They supposedly entered my Lufthansa number for me, but as I could tell when I printed my boarding pass, it wasn't entered properly, and it didn't work. I had to claim my miles via Lufthansa after the flight On a separate call, the rep took my special meal request and entered it, but didn't seem to know, or didn't bother to tell me that special meals were not possible during Covid 3) My itinerary was IAD-DEL-MAA, on different B787s for each leg. I flew business class, and the product is really sub par. The seats are grimy, the upholstery was torn on one of the legs, the seat power didn't work properly. Worst of all for me, the moving maps didn't work on both IAD-DEL and DEL-IAD legs. Also, the flat bed isn't long enough for my 6'3" height. The pillow they give is a joke. The cabin crew were nice enough, but I really didn't like the heavy/greasy Indian food I was forced to eat on some of the legs. The food on the MAA-DEL leg even gave me severe digestion problems. 4) Air India lounges were open in DEL or MAA, supposedly due to Covid, but other private lounges were operating, so it seems like Covid was just an excuse. 5) On a couple positive notes, all my flights were on time, which was a blessing, and the prices of the business class ticket was well below pre-pandemic business class levels.

✅ Trip Verified | Horrible experience with customer care and staff. Customer care promised me 30kg as I had next day international flight, but they charged me 5040 rupees for 8kg. Really horrible and low level service. They don't understand your concern.

✅ Trip Verified | I had decided to use my miles to redeem the flight from Mangalore after having a good vacation and was able to successfully book the flight and select my seat without any issues. The check in and baggage drop was quick and easy. The load on this flight was on the lighter side and so as a result the flight was by and large very uneventful. Boarding also started well ahead of time and as far as the inflight service was concerned, only a drink was provided. The arrival and baggage collection was also done swiftly. For a journey which was redeemed using miles, it was worth the value and the process was very smooth.

✅ Trip Verified | The Ticketing staff at Delhi Terminal 3 is worst. I had to stand for 2 hours just to drop bags even after e-checking and when my turn came I was thrown here and there and charged Rs 20,000 for luggage weight. I don’t Mind giving the amount if it’s the rule and is legit. The desk person let go a girl without even weighing her carry on telling her, why do you want to weigh it, if you can lift it, that means it’s not that’s heavy, and the same guy charged me around Rs 600 per kg. I don’t mind doing that but what I saw him doing with that girl is totally unprofessional. Save yourself from a rude experience by not traveling by Air India.

✅ Trip Verified | My original travel date was on 16th January and flight has been re-scheduled three times. Worst thing is that their call centre staff are so rude, so never again!!

✅ Trip Verified | The staff are not at all polite. They are so rude and are doing things in their on will. Not following protocols or any rules. I was flying from Cochin to Delhi then to Toronto in a Air India connection flight. The Air India staff from Delhi did not let me fly even when I had a valid PCR report with me. They were so rude and they stopped me from boarding telling that they need to verify my result. The supervisor at the Delhi Airport was being so irresponsible and later was not clearly saying anything about why I'm not eligible to travel. Then he later apologized and told me he will book one ticket for me the next day. I stayed there from 1 am in the morning to 11 am talking to everyone in Air India asking about this issue. No one responded in a good way and even was laughing at me. The supervisors are even worse with no responsibility. They even took back my boarding pass from Delhi to Toronto to take away the proof. Worst ever flight experience and I lost 1 lakh 10,000 rupees for a new ticket. They didn't even refund me or didn't do anything even when they did the wrong thing to me.

✅ Trip Verified | On this flight from Kolkata to Bangalore, when I tried to do the web check in, I came to know that the flight got rescheduled by 2 hours which was unexpected and not exactly welcome as we were hoping to save some time. Also when doing the web check in, I was also surprised to see that the system was unable to recognize the PNR which was quite strange, however the mobile check in was successful and even though the timing of the flight was uncertain, just 1 day before the departure, the airline provided a confirmation of the flight timings via SMS. The baggage drop and ground process was quick and smooth. Boarding was on schedule and the departure was also slightly delayed by 15 mins due to the air show in Bangalore. However the crew made up for the time en-route. The airline has also resumed full meal service and lunch was provided which was a welcome addition. The meal was good and nice and we landed 5 minutes ahead of schedule which was good. The web check in experience could have been better and also the rescheduling was not exactly welcome but the inflight experience was quite nice and the crew was very good in looking after the passengers. I would fly with Air India again in the future for the right price and timing convenience but they need to try to minimize the rescheduling of flights.