In Maharaja's lap!

Okay, a post on something which happened a month back... it was on my first trip back home after coming to US. An honest confession - I loove aeroplanes, had always been fascinated with these mean machines and man's ability to be able to fly something weighing hundreds of tons and (ironically) made up of materials all found on ground! I have a habit of reading reviews, I find them amazingly informative, insightful and also amusing at times. So even in this case I read up couple of really interesting TRs on www.airliners.net before deciding upon the airline I wanna fly. A particularly great Trip Report (you can read it yourself here ) caught my eye and drew me to "new" Air India. Like Air India's self promotion, the TR seemed to scream its lungs out "Have you tried the NEW Air India?".......

So against the suggestion of practically everyone I knew in US, I went ahead and booked my return ticket from Chicago to Delhi on our national carrier. As an added bonus the tickets were quite competitive too but I guess the perks of flying AI would end here... Below is a small review of my experience on AI (few pros and relatively greater number of cons)

First the GOOD news :-
1. AI has started flying the state of the art B777 on select US routes - NY and CHI. These aircrafts have quite a generous seat pitch (almost 34" in Economy!!!) and decent leg space too.

2. Mood-lighting - these B777s have mood lighting and man the cabin looks beautiful n soothing once they are switched ON.. snaps coming soon.....
3. In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) - great AVOD screens with decent headphones... the flip side - bad collection of movies!!!
4. Food - For enthusiasts of desi food, no airline in this world will serve you better Indian Food than Air India... absolutely no comparison in this regard....Also AI is one of the very few airlines which serves free drinks on board (again in Economy).

Ok enuf of pros.. now for a larger list of cons.. I will only mention the select few which kinda perturbed me :-

1. In-flight service - the thing which according to me makes or breaks a good carrier. The sevice level in AI was below average. I flew 2 sectors - ORD - FRA and FRA-DEL and return, and the only time I got acceptable service was on my way back to US from FRA to ORD.... rest all were very very ordinary.. More so I was really irritated with the Behenji's (read Air Hostesses) on board the flight.. most of them were just too casual and indifferent.. one thing which particularly pissed me off was none of them had the courtsey to say "Welcome" after I said "Thank You!" Ok folks back home, please dont think I am being finicky here.. u expect these basic courtsey from air hostesses atleast!! They are India's ambassadors in some sort of way and when you stay abroad you take these stuff for granted... also there seemed to be a major underdose of "smiles" floating around!!

2. Delays - On my flight back to US, the flight was delayed.. I am not denying that this is something unusual on transcontinental routes but the worst thing was no one communicated this to us. I had a flight from CCU-DEL-ORD and I was supposed to change planes in DEL. In CCU no one cared to announce what is happening where the flight was delayed for around 2 hours (same as my transit time in DEL)

3. My ordeal with IFEs continued.. FRA - ORD the IFE wont start after the initial 10 mins.. and worst of all the collection was pathetic and exactly the same as that of my outward journey.. outdated movies and they did not even change the collection (I heard they are supposed to revamp the collection monthly) On the +ve side, I was not feeling that bad about the condn of the IFE

4. Co-passengers included 85% senior citizens, 10% foreigners and 5 % youngsters (and I am being generous here and counting people TILL the age group of 35 as "young").. May not be a big deal for many but helloooo it was for me!

All in all a pretty dissapointing experience.. Was I expecting more because of Mr Abrelosojos's TR or was I just being irrational? US carriers are notorious for their below average service whereas it is a common belief that Indian carriers and their service are the best in the world. Whatever it is, will I fly AI again? Unlikely... definitely it will not be my carrier of choice......

Sorry state of affairs!

I am frustrated and angry... and all because of Apple Inc. Suddenly since Tim Cook (COO and acting CEO) had taken over the reigns of the company, Apple seems to be coming up with these amazing (for some, weird for me!) promotions. 3 months back I bought my first Mac (an aluminium 13-inch one) putting in almost half of my month's salary and just yesterday got to know that these guys are shipping a MacBook Pro for the same (or wait, an actually lesser) amount. Damn these guys!!!

Next they come up with the new iPhone3G S and bring down the price of the current iPhone. OK, I have nothing against technological innovation and I knew this day would come and the newer products would be a lot cooler, but then that is not what I am angry about. Why cant Apple let the older n loyal users of iPhone 3G (like ME!) upgrade to the new software or even better the phone itself. I checked with ATT and they asked me to pay a freaking 500 USD for a shift to 3G-S. Ridiculous!!

Update : Apple did allow us to download the new iPhone v3.0 software which has few of the important tools that comes up with 3G S. Sorry Apple! you still are the best and I am a loyal fan! :)-



On a side note, take the auto industry of US for example. I think as per reports, US has the maximum number of cars per household in the WORLD. Buying a brand new car is relatively cheap as compared to most other parts, and it has a thriving used-car market. You get real good deals in the 7.5-10k USD range for an average user. Now lets just change gears and concentrate on the service side of this industry. If your car needs a repair (which it most probably would over a course of 1.5-2 years) you will be broke. Some figures :-
Used Honda Accord 2000 model - Around 6000 USD [Cool isnt it!! Read on!!!]

Service Costs :-
Catalytic Converters - Around 1500-2000 USD
Brakes (All 4) - Around 1000 USD
Auto Transmission - Around 2000 USD
Simple Rear body work - Around 1000 USD

It is highly probable that you will end up doing atleast one of the above. If you are particularly unlucky and end up doing more than one, time to buy a new car buddy!!!!

Alas!! India practically out of T20 World Cup! '09

India's early exit in the T20 World Cup had left me quite dissapointed... it was not quite long ago (in 2007) that we all cheered for India in the finals of the inaugural T20 World Cup against arch-rivals Pakistan and enjoyed every moment of India's victory...

I followed the last 2 games through cricinfo and for some reason it never felt that they were in control in either.. anyways without sounding too judgemental I wish Dhoni & Co better luck and games ahead!

"The Hangover" after "Taking Pelham 123"

Today was a historic day! For the first time in my life I watched two back to back movies in a theatre. What started as a very lazy Sat afternoon had an exciting ending. Yours truly along with a handful reached the theatre at around 5 deciding which movie to watch "Pelham.." or "Hangover". The former had Hollywood heavyweights but the latter had a huge fan following among my friends.. nevertheless I convinced my friends to go for Pelham.. it was an OK movie.. another one of Travolta's movie where he is the bad guy and have a hostage situation.. I am a bigg fan of Travolta but somehow I feel there was nothing in this movie which I did not anticipate... anyways after the movie, one of my friends came up with this idea that lets go out and get back in for Hangover... In the beginning I thought he must be joking but I was wrong and in a miraculous way we convinced the whole group to walk back right in for another movie... "The Hangover".

Hangover was a hilarious movie... one of the good comedies in a long time.. no fancy actors, no new story line but the whole package was quite good... it might be a bit "guy" kind of a movie so to say but was a perfect movie to end an otherwise ordinary Saturday night...

P.S. I just realised that the last 3-4 posts of mine had always been about movies.. maybe an indication thats all I am doing right now! Until next time.....