Is AI reliable or not? - Airliners-India

deaphen · Member

Is AI reliable or not?

DELAPPROACH · Member

It is reliable to fly Air India if you don't have any connections.

It is perfectly safe to fly Air India.

The new planes and the IFE will make it a world class airline.I hope that

Cheers,

Mayank

VOTV · Member

AI is not reliable.
Reasons:
1. Too small fleet for the routes it offers. One a/c has a problem or a VIP takes off. The schedule is messed
2. AI employees are not too bad but not too good either. If it was private they would be more efficient.

Also, AI doesn't care about the whole of India, they don't offer reasonable connections within India.

tayara mechanici · Member

AI is safe but not very reliable. To make AI efficient the govt has to get out of it completely, period. Any minor % will give the politicos and babus an excuse to meddle. The present boom in aviation was the best period for the govt to divest selectively till the airline could be sold out probably to a group of Indian FI (Public & pvt).

AI / IA crew training could have been heaved off as a stand alone venture with a robust programme to train the future requirements of all airlines within India. The same with Engg, the infrastructure in AI / IA is applicable to present generation aircrafts and has utility for the next 25yrs, atleast. With competition creating these very costly and valuable services the USP of these dept are diminishing with every new hangar or simulator built.

I believe the govt has lost the oppurtunity and by placing the order for the new fleet they have dug themselves deeper into the AI / IA muddle. The a/c are likely to start coming from end of this year early-next year, the airline needs huge amounts of cash to finance this, the staff are going to twist the govts arm to bargain better (ridiculous) benefits for operating NG a/cs, parliament with the left, will demand that the govt protect tax payers money and AIs interest, further protecting AI from comptetion and pampering the unions. In this enviournment i don't see any sensible buyer being interested in the airline and status quo prevailing.

It will be interesting to see accenture's AI/IA merger plan and advice for the future. IMHO Going by the happenings in corporate India in the last 20yrs, there is only one entity that can turn this basket case around and give the govt & employees their due. That is Mukesh Ambani, Nobody within India has the management skills required to turn around a desi govt owned behmoth like AI/IA into a truly world class airline.

karatecatman · Member

AI is very safe to fly. Forget the overdramatisation of incidents where every time something happens "the passengers had a miraculous escape".

But reliability is a bit of a problem. Their 747 schedules generally hold but it's the A310s (it's the world's largest operator of this aircraft type) that get the airline into bit of a mess.

Generally the A310s cover India to West Asia, Africa and the Far East usually spending half the flight time in Indian airspace, landing in a multitude of Indian airports before heading for the intended destination.

The 747s do India to Europe and the US, but there are also one or two services that do India to West Asia.

What can be done to make it a world class flying experience?

WHATEVER its detractors may say, there is a growing realisation within the corporation that this is perhaps the last chance this once-upon-a-time-truly-world-class-airline gets -- to survive or sink.

Things should start looking up once the brand new fleet gets in though this again will be an exercise over a few years. But what may help the airline is direct manufacturer and other ancillary support, a clause that was negotiated at the time of signing the deal. In effect, the airline will be starting life afresh with brand new equipment. And if the little bits of information we get are worth noting, they seem to be moving in the right direction.

Proposed "Merger" with sister airline Indian may help, especially in terms of enhancing the reach of the network, though Indian's MD says the move will benefit Air India more than Indian.

-- Edited by karatecatman at 00:28, 2006-08-16

HAWK21M · Member

AI is a very Good Airline.Better than most Carriers out there.

The Food is Excellent & the Service good too.The Mx facilities are Top class.

Improvements can be made to The Attitude of Workforce.Getting people to be more Professional.Keep Politicians Away from this Airline & Privatise it.

BTW....If you have to post something about India or Indian Aviation don't be scared of the Responses.I enjoy posting & reading about India on Anet & will def contribute Positively when I log on.

regds

MEL

HAWK21M · Member

And to add.

Increase the Fleet.

regds

MEL

the_380 · Member

Yes definately AI is very reliable... Just as someone said that the media focuses on AI and IC just too much thats why their every single -ve point is focused...

The best part is that u get the homely feeling when flyin AI over other foreign carriers in most of the cases

Except some snags in the airline hamper them from being the best

Boeing7xx · Member

Well Jet closes their counters almost an hour ahead of departure to get the passengers through security and customs and immigration, AI closes 40mins ahead of departure and in most cases remains open even upto 15mins of departure. Most of the take-off delays are essentially due to passengers turning up late, the second reason is AI (as well as IC) carries loads of budget passengers (low fares) pardon my racism here, but bihari's going to abu-dabhi(i've done this flight scores of times) or punjabi's going to toronto come with so much of carry on luggage that there have been times MTOW is exeeded. the fuel estimates go awry assuming what the passengers are carrying on board. But still they take off and land every single day. off topic, IC flies every single day to Leh, sometimes as little as 10 passengers, we do it. Ask jet or anyone else to fly with such loads, they'd rather cancel the flight.

Nimish · Member

deaphen wrote:

Do you think Air India is reliable or unreliable, is it safe to fly AI and what can be done to make it a world class airline?

AI is pretty unreliable - never book AI if you're travelling for business meetings on a tight schedule. This is not just "urban legend", but reality. The worst part is that if something goes wrong with AI, you'll be left with some of the most unprepared ground staff around (kind of like what happens with DN).

AI is pretty safe - but the recent spate of "incidents" have led me to wonder. AI is safe, but that does not always mean comfortable, given the shape of the interiors of their aircraft.

What can be done - basically only 1 thing - Privatize it. AI's current shape is only 50% it's own doing, the other 50% is due to the govt's constant interference in everything they try to do. Take away the govt, and suddenly AI's own stupidity will come to the front, and then the management will have to run to fix it.

Nimish · Member

the_380 wrote:

Yes definately AI is very reliable

What!!!!

You do realize we're talking about on-time performance here, not "dispatch reliability" or similar?

Nimish · Member

Airbus3xx wrote:

Well Jet closes their counters almost an hour ahead of departure to get the passengers through security and customs and immigration, AI closes 40mins ahead of departure and in most cases remains open even upto 15mins of departure. Most of the take-off delays are essentially due to passengers turning up late

And this is the whole cause of the problem. AI is OK with inconveniencing 200 pax who showed up on time, just to benefit the 1-2 pax who are late. Does not make for a reliable or efficient or cost-effective airline.

Airbus3xx wrote:

the second reason is AI (as well as IC) carries loads of budget passengers (low fares) pardon my racism here, but bihari's going to abu-dabhi(i've done this flight scores of times) or punjabi's going to toronto come with so much of carry on luggage that there have been times MTOW is exeeded. the fuel estimates go awry assuming what the passengers are carrying on board.

And once again - this is the problem. People are OK with SQ checking the weight of their carry on, and charging them extra for excess baggage, so why does not AI do the same thing? It would definitely help taking care of the MTOW/fuel estimates going awry - and reduce the delays due to that. If they want to help PAX, just increase the check-in allowance by 5-10 kilos, so you can then count that weight accurately as it's being checked in.

Airbus3xx wrote:

IC flies every single day to Leh, sometimes as little as 10 passengers, we do it. Ask jet or anyone else to fly with such loads, they'd rather cancel the flight.

AI or IC should not be treated as a charity. If it were a market driven company, they would have redeployed a smaller a/c, or clubbed 2 flights together. But no, IC will choose to fly an un-economical flight, since they have no real pressure to get in shape and reduce the burden on the tax-payer of this country.

the_380 · Member

Nimish wrote:

the_380 wrote:

Yes definately AI is very reliable

What!!!! You do realize we're talking about on-time performance here, not "dispatch reliability" or similar?

Yes that is understood their on-time performence, routes, poor sevice standards, etc. but dont forget that its the same airline with a glorious history which is posted in TR section as Flying in the Good old days...

Airbus3xx wrote:

IC flies every single day to Leh, sometimes as little as 10 passengers, we do it. Ask jet or anyone else to fly with such loads, they'd rather cancel the flight.

Its their this advantage that many pax also get... Just imagine if ur flying to somewhere for a reason as important as medical or even ur business deal etc etc and ur flight gets cancelled and especially from such places where u ont have many flights

rgds

the_380

vivekman · Member

AI - reliable? No way! I have flown them twice and never has the departure been on time. In fact on a BOM-AMD flight, the delay was around 90 minutes!! (for a 50 minute flight)

And talking about the homely feeling, well I would prefer to stay at home rather than experience the feeling. AI claims that their in-flight service is warm and motherly. Well, the warmth is due to the A/C not working and motherly - because of their ageing air-hostesses.

the_380 wrote:

Yes definately AI is very reliable... Just as someone said that the media focuses on AI and IC just too much thats why their every single -ve point is focused...

The best part is that u get the homely feeling when flyin AI over other foreign carriers in most of the cases

HAWK21M · Member

About the Snags.Are you referring to the "Sundarbans case".That was all related to the MLG or some other.

regds

MEL

tayara mechanici · Member

vivekman wrote:

And talking about the homely feeling, well I would prefer to stay at home rather than experience the feeling. AI claims that their in-flight service is warm and motherly. Well, the warmth is due to the A/C not working and motherly - because of their ageing air-hostesses.

Nice one vivek.

deaphen · Member

Hey guys

instead of starting a new thread i decided to just add to this one. My next AI question is, do you think their HUGe a$$ boeing order was carefully planned and studied? or did praful patel wake up one morning and just say hey! i like boeing....they are american.. india needs american support at the moment.. so lets buy the 787 and 773ER.

I know i may sound a little harsh. But i honestly doubt the ability of a politician to go into the intricacies of aviation.

Jus tmy thought.

regards

nitin

vivekman · Member

Maybe/may be not. But the government seems to have tried to please both Boeing and Airbus. The AI order went to Boeing whereas the IC order has gone to Airbus.

karatecatman · Member

And will it all be a big super mess now with the "merger"?

Airbus had predicted this a long time ago and one of the points in their trying to push AI into buying the Airbus A340 was "in the possibility/scenario of Air India merging with Indian Airlines, a common fleet will help reduce costs. ..."

As far as the mega deal is concerned, the only good thing is that there will be no allegations of corruption as the Comptroller and Auditor General and later a Parliamentary Panel and supervised by a former CBI Director and the former CVG supervised the negotiations. Finally P. Chidambaram sat in on the final negotiations. PM Manmohan Singh had the final say.

Same procedure with Boeing.

VOTV · Member

deaphen wrote:

Hey guys

instead of starting a new thread i decided to just add to this one. My next AI question is, do you think their HUGe a$$ boeing order was carefully planned and studied? or did praful patel wake up one morning and just say hey! i like boeing....they are american.. india needs american support at the moment.. so lets buy the 787 and 773ER.

I know i may sound a little harsh. But i honestly doubt the ability of a politician to go into the intricacies of aviation.

Jus tmy thought.

regards

nitin

Whatever be the reason, the final choice for Boeing was good. It is a great a/c and I don't think any of the Airbus alternatives (A343 or whatever) doesn't come close to a 777 ( I can't comment on the 787 as of now)