Air India

✅ Verified Review | Delhi to Varanasi. The flight was delayed by winter fog by an hour and a half. The aircraft was very old. The cabin crew was polite and hospitable, but the food (morning snacks) was sub-standard. Not a pleasant and comfortable flight experience.

✅ Verified Review | Flew Air India from Delhi to Guwahati. Flight took off on time and landed 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Delicious food coupled with excellent service by the cabin crew made the journey even more relaxing. The leg room is excellent, the only thing lacking was the absence of IFE on this flight.

✅ Verified Review | Super convenient 3 pm departure from Delhi. Only direct flight from Delhi to Madrid. Excellent legroom in Economy class - more than any other long-haul airline I have been on. Adequate film choices in English. Decent meal, wholesome snack - more substantive than ANA which I flew to Tokyo from Delhi last month. Absolutely nothing wrong in traveling this airline. Asked for a Gin and tonic, got two without asking. Just don't understand why people criticize this airline so much. It's my preferred choice in Economy when possible.

✅ Verified Review | Took early morning flight last week from Mumbai to Kolkata with Air India. Departure was delayed by about 35 minutes, which was informed previous night itself so not an issue. Flight departed on revised time. Was served tasty, sumptuous breakfast during the flight. Overall an uneventful flight. Would surely fly them again.

✅ Verified Review | Mumbai to Delhi on Air India. I had taken this afternoon flight on an Airbus A321 after checking in online prior to the flight. Had dropped off my baggage at the designated drop off point and proceeded towards the boarding gate. The flight crew on this flight were quite polite and professional. Even though the departure time was 1pm, we had left around 1.15 or so. After departure, lunch service had commenced and as this was a domestic flight, Air India serves only vegetarian options and so had a meal of paneer masala and rice with dal. For dessert a sweet dish of barfi was provided. The food was excellent. After lunch, tea was served. This flight had an occupancy of around 85% and we reached our destination 10 minutes ahead of schedule. All in all, it was an excellent flight and I would fly with them again.

✅ Verified Review | Birmingham to Bangalore via Delhi. It was first time I have traveled on Air India on international sector. Check was smooth, Boarding as usual. Pushed back on time and arrived Delhi on time. Food on Birmingham to Delhi was good. In process of hot drink serving the way they serve hot drink without trolley is scary, they will pour hot liquid into passenger cup using a small tray at passenger space expense. I had argument on this serving methodology when we were landing into Delhi. Found pillow provided was stained. Apart from above issue the rest was good..

✅ Verified Review | Flew on Air India from New Delhi to Lucknow. I was transferring from Lufthansa to Air India, so checked-in my bag at the designated counter for connecting passengers. When I presented my Air India boarding pass and check-in bag (which was already tagged from L.A. to Lucknow), they told me that I would have to go upstairs to the main check-in area. I insisted that they process me at the designated counter for connecting passengers, or else it beats the purpose for having one in the first place! Overall, I wasn't impressed with the ground staff's professionalism. The on-board experience was okay. I wished the Flight Attendant "Good Morning" while entering the aircraft, she responded "Namaskar". It was a short 1 hour flight with express snack service. There was no IFE or WiFi on-board. If you are travelling with a baby or sitting in an exit row, the flight attendant will ask you if you prefer instructions in English or Hindi.

✅ Verified Review | Mumbai to Delhi. Yet again very disappointed. Again a dirty plane, dirty roof, vents, table, entertainment control and window surround. And although I had put my seat selection in my reservation I was put further down the plane in a middle seat. The reason for choosing seat 19D in my booking was to sit beside my colleague. We were both moved. Why bother asking us to select seats if you're going to stick us anywhere you like, even as a Star Alliance frequent flyer program. I flew with Air India in 2015 from the London to Mumbai and have chosen to avoid that on my last 5 visits with the exception of a couple of domestic flights and Air India have not failed to disappoint. Not good enough Air India. I'm a frequent flyer, taking long haul flights about 30 times a year plus domestic connections and Air India is really low grade.

✅ Verified Review | Delhi to Delhi to Birmingham. We were happy with the service we received. The flight was punctual, legroom was good (we are all tall so this has always been important). Staff were pleasant and helpful and the baggage arrived quickly. Proud to fly Air India.

✅ Verified Review | Flew Air India from New Delhi to Chicago. Business Class toilet was very dirty. Tissue paper and other garbage on the floor, no one bothered to clean it. After two hours, I returned and the toilet was in the same condition. This is simply unacceptable. Business Class toilet ran out of tissue and no one bothered to refill it. It was empty throughout the flight. Again this is simply outrageous. My entertainment system did not work at first. I reported this to one of the attendants and he restarted and it seemed to work. But in the end, the Flight Map was still broken. There were no meal menu given to us during this trip. The meals were verbally communicated to us. I paid $US2,000 only to be told what is in my meals. I had two small meals during this flight and each time I completed my meal the tray was not picked up in a timely fashion. I think I must have waited 25 minutes after I finished my meal, for the tray to be picked up. The flight attendants did not walk down the aisle as often as I think they should. Service was not a top priority for this set of crew. Meals were warm although I've had better economy international food than Air India's business class. I can assure you that my next trip to India will not be with Air India.

✅ Verified Review | London to Mumbai. The check in process was quite smooth and as I had already checked in to the flight via the mobile app, all that was left was to print the boarding passes and baggage tags and deposit baggage. The departure time of the flight was 13:15 however the flight departed after a delay of 45 mins. The inflight service was top notch. After an hour or so, flight attendants served drinks (eg. orange juice, water, whiskey) and peanuts. I opted for the non veg option for lunch which was lamb curry with rice along with salad, a bun and kheer for dessert. The food was excellent. The IFE entertainment had a good collection of movies (Hollywood/ Bollywood) and TV shows. Before landing, a second hot meal service where for non veg, malai chicken along with veg hara bhara kebab and pattice was given along with a bun, fruits and a gulab jamun for dessert. We arrived at Mumbai at around 3am and proceeded to collect baggage without any problems. All in all, a good solid flight with nice friendly crew, good cabin atmosphere, ambience, good IFE content, good food to eat.

✅ Verified Review | Mumbai to London on Boeing 787. The legroom is quite spacious and flight attendants were polite and professional. For breakfast I opted for the non-veg option which was omlette with chicken sausage and potatoes, croissant, fruit salad, bun and tea. The breakfast was very tasty. Upon waking up, a second round of food and drinks service started and watched a Hollywood movie. The non veg option contained chicken and rajma with rice, salad and gulab jamun. Before arrival, immigration forms were handed out. The flight attendants went about their tasks efficiently even though they may have been stiff on certain occasions. I would recommend this airline on this sector.

✅ Verified Review | I am very disappointed with the airlines as i booked my ticket from Newark to Mumbai with a connection flight from Mumbai. I am already on my way to airport, i was informed that the flight got cancelled due to technical issues and should postpone my visit to next day. It was important for me to fly on the same day and hence asked them to make necessary arrangements. I was routed to NY airport and was told that I will be issued a new itinerary from NY to DEL. Once reached the NY airport, was asked to find a connection flight on my own from DEL. I had to put up an hour's argument to prove my point that its a last minute cancellation and would be difficult for me to rebook a flight from Delhi and it being after 7PM will be even more difficult to find any local flights. Now, I am not sure if i can take the risk of flying back in Air India as the last minute cancellations seems to be pretty common for them and asked them to cancel the return trip and process the refund. its been 7 days since i made multiple calls and haven't heard from them yet. I feel really bad to say that such a big carrier offering worldwide services has such poor standards.

✅ Verified Review | Kolkata to Delhi. Good experience at Kolkata airport with the ground staff. I had a flight at 10 am but couldn't reach airport on time due to some emergency. The staff understood my situation and gave me the boarding pass even after I was late by 15 mins from the expected show up time i.e. 9am. A big thumbs up to the staff.

✅ Verified Review | London Heathrow to Newark. Got to the gate 1 hour and 30 min before takeoff instead of going to all the star alliance lounges. Mistake, you can probably arrive 45 min before takeoff despite what you're boarding pass says. Boarded the plane and we sat there with the In-Flight Entertainment not working for an hour and a half. We had to remind the flight attendant to turn it on. The screen though is massive, and there is a wide variety of movies in HD in English and Indian. This is probably because of their new 787 Dreamliner which is very nice. The seats recline a lot and the windows are all tinted blue the whole flight so the plane isn't to bright. We got served a Indian lamb or chicken dish. Very authentic Indian food along with very nice Indian flight attendants. IFE stayed on the whole flight and they server a breakfast of chicken and falafel which was very good. Landed very smoothly with 40 mph cross winds. Impressive food, service, and comfort from Air India.

✅ Verified Review | Flew Air India from Bhubaneswar to New Delhi. The only bad thing was the delayed flight. All the rest was excellent. Seats were good, food and staff service was good. Clean Lounge. Enough food was given. I requested hot water and that was fulfilled by staff.

✅ Verified Review | Bhopal to New Delhi. A pleasant experience flying Air India. I wanted to appreciate the ground staff at Bhopal airport including the Security who helped us a great deal to arrange boarding the aircraft. We reached airport just 30 min before scheduled departure and the check-in was closed. After requests, since we as a family had to take onward flight from delhi, the ground staff went out of the way to help us with quick check in, luggage check-in and everything else till the time we boarded the aircraft. The aircraft was on-time, with spacious leg room, good seats, food was excellent and courteous staff.

✅ Verified Review | I have no complaint about the service we received on our flight other than the entertainment system was somewhat hard to use and that my husband could find no classical music which he usually enjoys listening to on long haul flights. My complaint is about the ground personnel for Air India in Delhi. Due to a mechanical problem on our flight from Kolkata we missed our connection to a Lufthansa flight in Delhi. Lufthansa could not help us book a new flight and told us that Air India had to do it. When we finally made our way to the Air India booking desk there was a mob at the desk, not an organized queue. Would it be too much to put up some ropes so that people could queue and be helped in an orderly manner? When we finally got the attention of a person at the desk she said we had to contact Lufthansa in order to rebook which was the opposite of what Lufthansa told us. She gave us a voucher for a hotel and told us to contact Lufthansa in the morning. It was now 5 am. The hotel was horrible. It looked to be still under construction. It was cold and in a noisy neighborhood. The breakfast was awful. We could not reach Lufthansa with the phone numbers that Air India had given us the night before so we had to head back to the airport after getting less than three hours of sleep. This time there was no mob in front of the Air India booking desk but the man who helped us was interrupted 10 times while serving us. He told us he needed a ticket number to rebook the flight. Why didn't the Air India woman the previous night tell us this? After we provided him with that number it took him 2 hours to make the new booking. Then we had 13 hours to wait for our flight with no comfortable place to wait since we were told we could not access the Business Class Lounge until 4 hours before our flight. When we were finally allowed to check in for the flight the personnel at the Air India Business Class desk could only be described as surly. I find it difficult to believe that Air India truly wants its employees to treat passengers especially those who have paid a premium to fly in business class to be treated so poorly.

✅ Verified Review | Goa to London via Mumbai. We flew air India on the 12/13th February 2017 initially from Goa to Mumbai. The flight was delayed to Mumbai by 30 minutes, then we were told the flight would be 1 hour delayed, in the end the flight was delayed by over 3 hours resulting in our connecting flight on Jet Airways being missed back to the UK. The whole experience was handled very poorly by the ground staff at Goa, there were no announcements regarding the reason why or any updates. After 2 hours, more passengers started to arrive for the later flight so it was obvious that the two flights were being combined. On arrival and at check in, we were handed boarding passes with a capital D printed on the boarding pass, indicating delayed but the new arrivals were issued regular boarding passes. As it turned out, we departed Goa at 01.30 on the 12th February, we knew by this stage that the connecting flight was not possible. On our arrival at Mumbai we were left to our own devices with Air India totally washing their hands of our situation. The ground staff were aggressive, dismissive, rude and generally not getting involved. At one point we were sent to the customer information desk in the airport, it was not an Air India information desk, just a general desk for airport services. Jet Airways would have nothing to do with us either, blaming the other airline, (this will be another review). We ended up buying 2 new tickets on Air India to Birmingham via Delhi, (it was the only flight out that morning,) would you believe it but this flight was delayed by 2.5hrs so we missed our connecting flight once again. We were offered the next flight out to London Heathrow, we had boarding passes issued, collected our luggage, checked in again and rushed to the departure gate, managed to get on the plane and would you believe: we were delayed by another 2 hours. It appears this is a very common everyday issue for this airline. On my return to the UK, I was informed by other travellers that the exact same delay occurred on the Friday night. The flight was not the best, an old Boeing 777, dirty interior, absolutely filthy toilets that smelled terrible. The inflight entertainment system on our seats stopped working after 40 minutes, this happened on 2 occasions so we were not able to watch anything in full, not even the shorter programs. My only praise for this whole experience were the cabin crew on this leg from Delhi to Heathrow, they were jolly, chatty and polite. Since my return, I have tried to contact Air India numerous times for a delayed flight certificate, but with no reply. I'm not sure if they have any customer support in the UK but if they do, they dont want to be found. I was told to travel to Heathrow to Air India ticket office to collect the certificate. 500 miles round trip from my home, I dont think that will happen. So my overall view of Air India is not a good one, I personally would not fly them again unless there were no other carrier's flying to that particular airport. One piece of advice, if your flying to join another flight in Mumbai please give yourself ample time at least 6 hours if not more just in case of delays.

✅ Verified Review | We booked Air India for our trip from the UK to Goa because they offered the most convenient connection through Mumbai with minimal stopover time. It also offered very good value for money. Then I read the very negative reviews on this site and began to wish we hadn't. However our experience was very positive. This review is of the Mumbai to London long haul leg but it equally applies to our outbound leg. The connection at Mumbai is rather chaotic and involves a lot of different people stamping boarding cards and luggage labels to no good purpose after our internal flight from Goa. We then had a short wait in the terminal before the gate showed as open. There were no announcements at the gate then suddenly it was a hurry for everyone to board at once. No seat row priority. However we were near the front of economy so that wasn't a problem. Seats in economy on the 787 have comparatively generous legroom and are slightly wider than normal. Overall very comfortable with quite a lot of recline if you want it, and a foot rest if you have short legs. The flight was all in daylight, taking off at 07.00 and landing 11.30 (local times). The 787's electronic window blinds were effective in reducing solar glare and the cabin lighting made for a restful experience. IFE had a good range of Hollywood and Bollywood films, with a few recent releases and some older Hoclassics. TV channels in English were exclusively American shows, some well known comedies but the rest very mediochre. The audio channel has no western music, best bring your own. A map is available with various view options. On the outbound flight the touchscreen was problematic but inbound it worked perfectly. We had two full meals on this ten hour flight. A full hot breakfast soon after we took off and hot lunch a couple of hours before landing. It's a long time since I've had such good good on a long haul, full service carrier. Usually you get one meal and a snack. Drinks were served (with peanuts) some while before lunch. No more alcoholic drinks were offered but they were available from the galley if you asked. We had opted for a standard meal, which on Air India means some kind of curry. I found it tasty and well spiced without being overpowering. They had in fact run out of the non-veg lunch option by the time we were served but we were given a vegetarian curry with a seperate side dish of chicken curry. Excellent service. On many airlines you would just have to put up with what was left. Tea and coffee were served after lunch (tea first). Cabin crew offered water regularly throughout the flight to keep passengers hydrated. Despite this being a day flight the cabin lighting was kept dim and I was able to get several hours sleep.. Several reviews here comment on the bad state of the toilets. There were no such problems on either of our flights. Everything was as clean as any western airline. I suppose you might have a bad experience going into a toilet after someone has been ill, or made a mess, but that can happen on any airline. Air India has just as high standards of cleanliness as any other major carrier. In one sense Air India is like travelling back in time. The in flight service is old school full service. Nothing is skimped. Even the in flight magazine has interesting and well written articles to read, it isn't just a shopping catalogue. Cabin crew were uniformly courteous and helpful. I wouldn't hesitate to fly with Air India again, especially on the 787.