It all started with boarding a CR7 American Eagle at XNA to reach Chicago.This is one of the smallest, no frills plane one may fly; its too narrow with two seats on one side and one on the other.I fitted in my butt into the single seater and fell asleep to avoid the torture of being shaken like a cocktail drink during take-off.
The next flight was a gigantic leap from CR7. It was a Boeing 777-200; direct flight from Chicago to New Delhi. Mine was the first such non stop flight operated by AA.
They had special parties and guests to launch this event and the airport lounge was crowded lot. We were given special souvenirs and I hoped the in flight food would be special too (you cannot trust AA with good food).
However, the plane is super magnanimous. Just check out this blue print to gauge the enormosity of this beast.
The flight crew was happy to go to 'mystical' India for the first time. To my utter discomfort, I learned that AA doesn't serve free drinks (read alcohol) even on international flights;I don't know how they expect people to survive for 15 hours, in a closed airplane, in coach class, in the company of grey haired 40+ air hostesses without some liquor. I was fortnuate enough, when I could talk an air hostess to get me a free bottle of scotch. I could manage some sleep after that. The food was not alarmingly bad but also not superb. The limited variety of the food, keeping in mind it is an international flight also surprised me. You get better food on Indian domestic air routes. Read further.
Once in Delhi, I had to wait overnight to catch my next flight from New Delhi to Calcutta (Jet Airways). Believe me or not they use a Boeing 737, which is way bigger and spacious than the American Eagle stuff. The food is also sumptuous and plenty. http://www.airlinemeals.net/meals/JetAirways.html This is way much better than what I ate on the 15 hour flight. This feels like home. Good food. Indian hospitality. Prospering service industry of international standards.Mera Bharat Mahan.
The way back to USA from India it was Boeing 737 (Kolkata-Delhi), followed by Boeing 777-200(New Delhi-Chicago). After Chicago,I was to get NorthWest to fly back to Fort Smith via Dallas. Chicago to Dallas was good in a big Airbus. But the one from Dallas to Fort Smith took my wits away. It was one of those SR (short range) aircrafts with propellers driven by GE jet engines. The last seat looked actually like a couch where 5 people were jostling for space.I was seating on a single seat, luckily.That take-off scared me so much that I fell asleep once the plane was in air.The aged air hostess didn't even bother to ask for any beverage. It feels good to be back in USA where you have best of all facilities but the quality of air travel in USA is really not worth mentioning compared to SE Asia.
Let me know your feedback.
2 comments:
considering air travel is luxery in SE asia you gett better service compared to US as middle class will travel in US and service will be average .
I very much agree to you in this matter. Even my journey from Kolkata - London - Kolkata by British Airways was not one of the best ones. Service could be rated so so not worth mentioing the food. The domestic service in India is really stands among the crowd raising above the level. And adding to these most miss behaved BA crews serving as if they are doing it on a pity. Being a teetotaller can't say muchy about drinks and beverages. But during those 10 hrs what I could assume is that they are not happy to serve beverages for second time.Now comes the most funny part of BA modernization. You have an option of choosing what kind of food you would like to have in flight. I got very much imprssed when I saw this in BA.com while booking my window seat from the ba website itself and found myself very surprising that they are not in a position to serve my choice of delicacies.ha ha. SEI CMM Level 5 ? / Six Sigma ? Don't know what exactly.But there is a learning curve for them from Indian Jet and Air Sahara.
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