princessyin

They've got a really competitive price for their flight to New York over New Year (£320). Continental, United etc are coming in at £400. Flight time is not bad either- 1pm outbound and 7pm inbound.

Has anyone flown Air India before? Or is it worth paying the extra for the other co's?

16vmarc

I have years ago. Can't remember much about the experience. Customs were crap though.

You did get some weird hot thing in your meal though!

Alec

I've flown India internal with AI before and the service was perfectly acceptable.

KiwiGTI

No and never will. Only ones I'd fly are BA/Virgin.

THORPEM

I flew air india on a cheap deal to New York last year, the plane was very tierd, the GF was petrified, the inside of the plane appeared to be wallpapered with the type of wallpaper you would find in a indian takeaway, and the food/snacks were out of date.
Got us there, but next time i'll pay the extra to fly BA, couldn't fault them last time I flew to NY with them, and were very generous with the drinks

FlightMan

Does the Air India price include taxes? Delta are £330 + £60 tax flying over New Year from Gatwick.

KiwiGTI

Make your own mind up :

Air India Passenger Opinions about Air India product and service standards

And as far as I'm aware all the US carriers make you buy drinks (not sure about Delta)

MattW

US carriers charge for drinks on internal flights only. Flew Continental and NWA to the US in the last couple of months and drinks were free.

princessyin

Yes price includes tax. £326.30 on opodo but sslightly cheaper from the Air India website.

Continental can do a flight for £300 but you lose 2 days with the late outbound flight and early inbound.
Just looked on opodo, and the cheapest Delta fight from Gatwick is £405 inc taxes.

KiwiGTI

Sister flew United to San Francisco and had to pay. Maybe it's just them. She was pretty annoyed because it was an Air New Zealand codeshare.

KiwiGTI

ebookers have Continental at £320

Jaybird-UK

On jetBlue internal USA flights you get a free soda/coffee and snack

bonerp

I flew to NY with AI in Nov. the flight out got cancelled but they rearranged one with AA. The flight back with them was fine. Plane was tired but cost saving was significant so who cares? And the curry was good!

P

Chris L

Many moons ago, when working at Heathrow, it was always er.. interesting watch the AI Jumbos take off - especially at religious festival times. they would strip the planes so that they had maximum seat and cargo capacity. They would take almost the entire length of the Heathrow runway to take off and more than one clipped trees - which have now thankfully been cut down

princessyin

Just looked at ebookers. The continental flight time is crap for the money. £320

Departs 20.10 arrinves NY 22.50
Departs NY 08.20 arrives 20.00

You lose 2 days and i'm only planning to get there for 5 days

KiwiGTI

How do you lose 2 days?

The Air India is just as bad. Depart 1pm, ok so have to be at airport 10am, then 7-8 hour flight, then you are knackered.

Evening departures are always best for NY, leave here at 8pm, get there at 10pm, straight to hotel and then a great nights sleep so you can wake up refreshed and early the next day.

Return flight is not good though. You could always take a chance, book it and then try and alter the return flight time.

fivetide

iTrader: (1)

I flew Air India to Chicago once. Well cheap and the food was top. The only issues where the old seats (but the legroom was actually quite good) and the fact it only stopped at Heathrow to refuel having come from Mumbai so boarded a plane full of sleeping indians!

5t.

princessyin

I lose 2 days because I would arrive late and would have to get my head head for the next day and on the departure day I would lose that day cos I would have an early flight.

Went with Delta flying from Gatwick in the end. Depart 09.15 arrive NY 12.05. Can get back to hotel, get my head down for a few hours then head out in the evening for a night out. Leave NY 19.40 so can still have that day in NY. Paid an extra £60 to go with Delta but much better flight times. Thanks for everyone's comments!

Petem95

Its a saving, but you probably get what you pay for.

On the BA flight you'll be sat in a clean comfy seat watching a hollywood movie whilst enjoying the free bar.

On the Air India flight you'll be sitting on a crate with chickens and goats in the same cabin, watching a bollywood movie on a black-and-white TV whilst suffering the effects of the the hot in-flight curry you had for breakfast

Petem95

BBC NEWS | Business | Victory for 'fat' air hostesses

Things looking up for Air India - they ban air hostesses is they're too fat - so a good chance of lots of fitties serving the drinks on their flights

Easyjet should adopt a similar policy

Trout

iTrader: (1)

In my last company (major UK corporate) we travelled to India regularly and our Corporate Risk guys would NOT let us fly Air India even though it was bags cheaper.

Too high a risk AND our PI insurers did not like them either.

There is no smoke without fire

Moley

iTrader: (9)

Lol, i used to do the same when i worked at Gatwick.
The airline i worked for got very busy around the religious holidays, and i know they took off over the maximum takeoff weight on more than a few occasions!!!!
A friend of mine worked for a cargo company flying out of Gatwick, and used to phone me when there was an overweight flight leaving

jods

I second that emotion, Except I'll never EVER fly BA after the way that Barsteward Martin Broughton (BA Chairman) treated his Staff and the Arrishole him before killed off Concorde. Coonts of the 1st order...

CrisPDuk

Having flown both BA and AI to and from India I have to say the AI trip was easily the better
The BA flight was on the roughest looking 747 I've ever seen, with the roughest looking Flight Attendants into the bargain

If my company books the flights I generally don't get much choice in the matter, but if I'm spending my own money I never use BA
Not once have I had a decent experience with them

Given the choice I usually go for one of the Arab carriers, Emirates are easily the pick of the bunch, Etihad are a good second choice. The majority of the Asian carriers, Singapore, Malaysian, Cathay, etc, offer a far better service than BA too

One word of warning form personal exprience here, if you are flying into or out of Bangkok, avoid Thai like the plague, their check-in facilities at Suvarnabhumi are chaotic almost to the point of anarchy

DJ Vinyl Ritchie

Get yourself on one of the Asian Persuasion flights

On a recent long haul with Cathay Pacific.....

**** me I had a permenat boner for the entire flight. Also they're that small [air hostesses] you could get two of them in the toilet at any one time and give them a right old foo yong



DJ Vinyl Ritchie.............food is rather...well, how can I say this, sh1te! but if your partial to a bit of dog or cat in your grub, then go Asian

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Yep, I did, to JFK, was ages ago but not my best flying experience.

I always take my shoes off on Long flights, made the mistake of going to the bog, never usually a problem but the floor was an inch deep in p1ss and bits of toilet paper so got soggy feet, there was a glass of Coke left on a box type thing inside the plane (747) and I told the Stewardess and she said it would be fine and didnt want to deal with it before we took off, needless to say it fell over, the food was curry, and quite nice the rest of the flight was spent listening to Indian Ladies singing along with the in flight entertainment, so the inflight entertainment seemed to be recordings of Someone torturing different types of mammal, mainly cats and if you took the headphones off (after 2.5 seconds) the accompniament was a less polished version of the same.

Like PIA I suppose, who recently had loads of planes grounded and banned from landing in other countries as they are so knackered (they do have some brand new 777's now though), used to see the PIA 747 heave its over laden *** into the air (with literally feet to spare) whilst laying four black smoky trails over the Cheshire countryside !

I hope the pilot training in India is more advanced than their driving test.

billythekid

I bet the PIA 747 was out of Mcr, I used to see it take off every day. Used to stand at the windows of my old office (on Aviator Way..) and watch.

One day 3 of us stood there and we actually all ran for cover as the thing crabed off the deck on 06 in a cross wind straight towards us at about 100ft!! How it got over our 3 floor building I will never know. I am sure it hit the trees to the west of the Airport pub!

Was cool to see Concorde take off for the last time though for full AB right over our heads!

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Correct !