Airliners.net

The Los Angeles Times has a story about the hundreds of stranded Air India passengers whom have been trying to get out of LA on Air India this week, following the air turnback of AI136 on Monday, and subsequent AOG of a 2nd Air India B744 on Tuesday.

This weeks fiasco's follows the multiple AOG's and significant delays Air India kept incurring this entire summer at LAX.



Some exerpts:

It started Monday when their first flight blew a tire on takeoff, dumped fuel over the ocean and circled back to Los Angeles International Airport to land with a spray of sparks, shedding 200 pounds of rubber and metal on the runway.

On Tuesday, hundreds of Air India passengers tried again, settling into a different jumbo jet with "Your Palace in the Sky" scrolled in red script on the tail. This time, one of the engines would not start. For hours, travelers sat in the sweltering plane. Flight attendants locked up the drinks. Some passengers staged a mini revolt.

When passengers were finally taken to a hotel at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, they overwhelmed the front desk, and some did not get rooms until 4 a.m. Passengers called the airline -- some tried up to 10 times -- but got no answer.

Weary travelers returned to LAX on Wednesday morning for their third attempt, a flight set to depart at 1 p.m. It was pushed back. It was moved up. And finally, around 4:30 p.m., about 45 hours after their ordeal began, scores of travelers left for New Delhi, with a stopover in Frankfurt, Germany.

"It's been a nightmare," said Jaswinder Toor, a self-employed contractor from Modesto, as he waited in the Tom Bradley International Terminal earlier in the day.

The complete story can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...64643.story?coll=la-home-headlines

It's been all over the news as well. This could actually hurt Air India's reputation a bit.

Quoting DesertFlyer (Reply 1): This could actually hurt Air India's reputation a bit.

Naah, some people who fly AI will continue to fly AI, and while AI would have rebooked passengers - this incident has happened at the worst possible time for the carrier given the winter rush.
AI's problem over here is that several of the leased 744's that they are operating have a bad habit of going tech too often. Until the new planes start arriving in 2007, stories like these will continue to occur.

I am sure Air India will continue to fill its flights without a beat, however atleast out here in SoCal they are getting some terrible press.

Its one thing when us A.net fans hear about AI's repeated follies, but a much bigger black eye when the company is featured daily in the local media.

Last night the local news was all over this story, interviewing passengers who were understandably upset by all the delays. There was a quote by one passenger who said "Air India needs to learn about crisis management." They also recorded the passengers yelling at some AI official, who was saying "Yelling at me won't solve anything." It looked pretty bad.

And now the FRONT PAGE LA Times story.

This is horrible PR for Air India.

Every airline has endured the scenario of "when it rains it pours". No airline is immune from compounded irregular operations at one time or another. If indeed from a customer point of view things were handled poorly, hopefully AI will view this as a learning experience. I wouldn't expect them to be packing up and abandonning LAX anytime soon.

Given that Air India has a pretty wretched reputation (deservedly or not), the last thing they need is snags and bad press.

Besides, having leased aircraft is no reason to go "tech" all the time. If that were the case, half the world's fleet would be sitting in a hangar.

Last time I connected through LAX, I saw two Air India 744s at TBIT. For a minute I thought that AI had suddenly increased service to LAX, but then on the departures board I saw the flights had nearly identical numbers (162 and 0162 or something like that). Apparently the 744 from the day before had a 24-hour mechanical, and happened to be departing at the same time as the next day's flight.

Purely anecdotal, I know, but where there's smoke, there's fire eh?

Aaron G.

But for AI, the fares to India from LAX will be much higher on competing airlines. I have noticed a $200 premium for competing airlines like SQ and MH for MAA with a much longer layover in SIN or KL. LH with the best connection to MAA from LAX has a premium of almost $500.

I would pay $200-$500 more to not be delayed for 45 hours.

Quoting Travelin man (Reply 9): I would pay $200-$500 more to not be delayed for 45 hours.

This event - while disgraceful - is a one-time occurrence.

To Air India's credit, whenever I have flown them from the New York area to India or Europe, they have always been punctual.

Quoting DesertFlyer (Reply 1): This could actually hurt Air India's reputation a bit.

    

Quoting Jaysit (Reply 10): This event - while disgraceful - is a one-time occurrence. To Air India's credit, whenever I have flown them from the New York area to India or Europe, they have always been punctual.

But it's not a one-time occurence. Not that AI make a habit of it or something, but it does seem to happen to them more than to others.
Like you, though, I've been lucky. All of my many flights on AI over the years have largely been on time.

That may be, but when you look at the schedules out of LAX, you take a risk when flying Air India. With Lufthansa, you get at least a couple of flights per day, plus they could rebook you on one of their Star Alliance partners such as SQ. BA has 3 flights a day out of LAX (lots of rebooking opportunities), not to mention OneWorld partners like CX. If an AI flight goes out of service, what are the options? They aren't in an alliance. You just have to wait until the next day (as these people unfortunately had to do).

This may be a one-time occurence, but from LAX, I'd book on an airline that has contingency plans in place.

I wouldn't read into the media report 100%.What do they mean by Engine would not start.

Quoting Travelin man (Reply 12): This may be a one-time occurence, but from LAX, I'd book on an airline that has contingency plans in place.

Makes sense def.
Whats the
regds
MEL

Quoting Travelin man (Reply 12): That may be, but when you look at the schedules out of LAX, you take a risk when flying Air India. With Lufthansa, you get at least a couple of flights per day

But Air India jumped oh so willingly into bed with Lufthansa. And oohed and aahed about how wonderful their partnership is going to be, and how LH weren't just going to share codes and facilitate good slots at FRA, but how LH were also going to sort out all of AI's technical issues etc etc etc.

Fat lot of good that's doing now.

Quoting Travelin man (Reply 12): BA has 3 flights a day out of LAX (lots of rebooking opportunities), not to mention OneWorld partners like CX

Had 3 flights a day out of LAX - that was in the summer and not sure if it was daily, i thought it was 5x...not sure.

One of the bad things about Air India LAX, seems to be that they rarely give passengers away to other airlines and instead hang on to them in some cases for days on end during big service disruptions.

During this last summer and its many irregular operations, I remember running across scores of AI pax that had been forced to spend a day more in LA awaiting their flight to finally operate.

Also Air India contracts its passenger handling at LAX from a small local handling company, whom seemingly gets overwhelmed with the frequent operational problems the carrier often faces.

Forgot to mention, yesterdays (22Dec) flight was about 21hours late, having just departed a few minutes ago.

21 hours late?

Again, I'd pay the extra $200-$500 NOT to fly AI.

Quoting AirxLiban (Reply 15): Had 3 flights a day out of LAX - that was in the summer and not sure if it was daily, I thought it was 5x...not Sure.

BA have 3X daily LHR-LAX/LAX-LHR flights during the summer
And, 2X daily LHR-LAX/LAX-LHR during the winter
So yes, the 3X was daily during the summer, but it was 5X weekly last year.

Wrighbrothers