Can the Tatas still save Air India from flushing away its reputation?
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Air India’s journey under the Tata group has been replete with mis-steps. The latest was on 5 March when an Air India aircraft headed to Delhi had to fly back to Chicago as eight of the 12 lavatories in the aircraft had become unserviceable.
In February, Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan joined a long line of passengers complaining about the quality of seats on Air India aircraft. In a post on X, Chouhan said the seat allocated to him by Air India was “broken". The airline apologised to the minister and India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation is looking into the matter.
There’s also the instance of an octogenarian Air India passenger who did not get a wheel chair and had to be hospitalised because of a fall. Air India’s response to these incidents has been unbecoming. It “empathised" with the octogenarian passenger and said its investigation had found that the “said passenger travelling with family members had arrived at the departure terminal much later than the recommended two hours before departure".
As for the Chicago-Delhi flight, Air India said polythene bags, rags, and clothes flushed down the aircraft’s toilets had got stuck in the plumbing. “We take this opportunity to urge passengers to use lavatories only for the purposes that they are meant for," the airline said in a statement. Also read | Air India, IndiGo ramp up loyalty programmes.
But they have a lot to catch up Instead of taking some of the blame for the shoddy maintenance work on the aircraft, Air India put the blame on its passengers. It is evident that the aircraft was not serviced properly in Chicago. Otherwise, why were eight of its 12 lavatories unserviceable soon after the aircraft took
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