India

I've received hundred of hits on this blog over last week. I know a few of you but there must be a lot of other people who have found this blog and may be getting something out of it. Please leave me a comment or subscribe to the blog so I know how much effort to put into it. I haven't gotton to the part where we actually begin our vacation (if you call it that). I hope to do so in the next post.

After everyone leaves for domestic airport; there are about 5 of us left; we hunt down the bald guy who says he is trying to get us on another flight. There is only one guy helping with customer service for the entire Air India staff on Bombay airport. This is India’s biggest airport with government’s flagship airline. They have 1 billion people in the country and a lot of them are unemployed. I see that there are about five employees in baggage claims area just standing around, however it’s not their job to help us. It has been three weeks since Christmas; the baggage claim area still has ugly Christmas decorations up.

At about 7am we are told that they may have a 1pm flight for us. We stand in another line and Jet Airways employees don’t get what we’re saying. We have to go back to the bald guy and have him come with us to explain to Jet Airways what flight we are supposed to be on. We’re issued boarding passes for a 1:10pm flight.

I wanted to go to the domestic airport and just wait there; I’ve been there before and It’s a little better airport. I asked the bald guy about our options and he reluctantly said he can offer us a hotel; I read some reviews like this one where Air India puts you in a roach motel and you’re worse off going into the city filled with people to rip you off. I was extremely reluctant. He said the hotel would be Sahara just across the domestic airport and they would provide transportation. It had been almost 30 hours since we left Chicago and we were tired and I only had about 4 hours of sleep. I could not think straight; I asked him how long to get the hotel shuttle and he said 5 minutes.

He made a call to the hotel and asked them to come right away. We were standing outside of the security in front of the air India desk/cabin. They have this 8 feet by 8 feet poorly lit office; sort of like a toll booth behind a glass enclosure. We stand and wait by this office for about 15 minutes, there is no signs of the shuttle. There are other customers with problems; this one employee is often rude to the customers asking them to step aside or go away. We’re told to go outside “near door 83” and wait for the shuttle. We go outside and there is a sea of people, most of them wearing white; they seem to be waiting for people coming back from middle east. These people were muslims waiting for first flight to come back from Hajj. As we go outside this Indian security personnel asks us where we were going, I said we have to go to Sahara hotel. He thought we meant Sahara airport and asked us to go back inside and catch the shuttle. I explained that we are waiting for a shuttle to the hotel. He let us out of the airport.

We found the “door 83”, it was behind the Air India office on the other side. The door number was about 1 inch high; we could have easily missed it. The weather was really warm. I felt that most people were staring at us. One of the biggest problem was that there were a lot of huge mosquitoes. I got bit several times; I noticed a fan inside the Air India office; I asked if my son can stand inside near the fan so he wouldn’t be bit by mosquitoes. They said he can stand here but the fan doesn’t work. There were even more mosquitoes inside. Around 7:45am, an unmarked SUV arrived; the driver was from Sahara Hotel. We quickly got inside, there were a few other people with us trying to load their luggage. After about 10 minutes we started towards the hotel.

I expected the airport area to be clean with lush trees, may be palm trees. It was anything but that; you can see pretty much entire area was run down and the traffic was pretty bad. One of the first thing I noticed was the air had a lot of dust like there was a dust storm recently.

Bombay International terminal (1A) from outside

The hotel was a couple of miles away; on the way I saw a Hyatt and Sheraton; both looked impressive compared to their surroundings. I was afraid that our hotel was going to be another dump; from the outside it looked okay; the lobby was nice and clean with fresh flowers. There were a couple of people behind the counter. They were slow in checking us in. We took the elevator to the third floor and walked for a minute to our room. More than half of the hotel was under construction. The rooms were okay, similar to a holiday inn in the US.

While we were going through the customs I heard an announcement that we should meet an Air India representative outside of customs. So we make our way to a crowd of people and sea of luggage surrounding this tiny desk. There is one guy behind the desk and about seventy people have surrounded him; there are no lines; kids are crying and people are pushing each other to get in front. I find out that this cattle-fest filled with confusion is about getting a voucher to get on the next flight.

My wife stands in the line or somewhere in the crowd and I guard the luggage and watch my son. After a few minutes I hear yelling and arguments between two passengers in the crowd; tensions are high and everyone wants to make it on the flight. This goes on for about half an hour; I can see the customs counter from where I’m standing and see more people being harassed and forced into paying bribes.

My wife gets to talk to the bald guy behind the desk; he gives her a voucher but tells her that our tickets are “not confirmed”. WTF? We already had boarding passes for the flight we missed. I confirmed the tickets on AirIndia.com myself. This airindia.com link shows that US passengers don’t need to reconfirm their tickets.

Air India was giving out vouchers to put people on Jet Airways flight for 10am. There was a 6am flight but everyone there would miss it. We tried to ask the idiot behind the desk about this “not confirmed” business and he didn’t have any other answers and repeated himself. He said you can stand in line for Jet Airways and if they have room they will take you.

So we stand in this line which is 10 feet away from this guy’s tiny temporary desk; Jet airways is scanning everyone’s luggage; we just came through an international flight still behind security; what’s the need to rescan the bags? There are two desks open and they’re moving people extremely slow. It took almost an hour to get our bags scanned and get up to the Jet Airways “transfer” desk to ask them if they have room for us. One hour standing in line at a US airport would have been paradise compared to this airport is a run down hellhole filled with mosquitoes, foul smell, and dripping pipes overhead. I wanted to assume it was just water. I wanted to take pictures but I was afraid that I might be detained and harassed. All of this including customs is happening in the same area; I can see the customs desks; luggage belts; and Jet airways counter from where I’m standing. The place is not bigger than a high school gym.

There are no public phones in the area so we can call and inform our family who might have come to the other airport to pick us up. The phones are outside the security and I didn’t feel like venturing out there because I might not be able to get inside.

There are restrooms that are being attended by multiple genitors who are there waiting for you to tip them; my wife took my son to the restroom and there were four female genitors inside, one of them asked “what do you want to do?”

Jet Airways employees told us that you’re not “our list” and Air India has not “confirmed you”. They said they could not do anything about it. I asked if they had room in the business class to which she replied “there is no business class” on our flights. I asked if there was a later flight, she said she can get me on a 4:55pm flight which was 12 hours away. So we are left with standing there like victim of Katrina hurricane in a very similar hellhole with no idea what’s going to happen next. The bald air India employee was no where in sight and there were a few other passengers with similar problems. We all met each other and I quickly understood what had happened. All of our last names were at the end of the alphabet. Air India bumped us all because there was limited seating on the Jet Airways flight and we were at the end of their list.

Any other airline would have remedied the situation by offering compensation to volunteers to make everyone happy. Instead we were lied to, discriminated against and they made us stand in line for hours with a toddler. They could have leveled with us; offered us accommodations; and confirmed us on a later flight. That could have saved us from the emotional rollercoaster and we could have gotten some rest. Air India doesn’t work this way; they don’t care about their customers; some bureaucrats make the decisions who don’t have a clue about customer service. They should be hit with a class action law suit and banned from providing service until they clean up their act.

We took our luggage to the green channel and loaded it on the belt. The luggage was scanned and retrieved on the other side. After a couple of bags were scanned the customs officer in the white uniform asked what I had. I said a bottle of alcohol and everything else was within limits and there were no dutiable items. He said that I had a camera. I said yes it’s for our personal use and we’ll be taking it back with us. Then he said there is jewelry in the carry-on bag. My wife explained that it was costume jewelry but he insisted that I show it to him. So I opened the carry on bag and showed it to him. He asked how much it worth was. I said not much it was from India, we’re taking it back for a social function.

I told him we have nothing to declare and we have another flight to catch. He said you definitely have something and if I send you to the Red channel area you’ll have to pay duty. I asked how much would that be, he replied “two hundred to two hundred fifty dollars”. I said I don’t have that much money on me and I don’t think I have anything that would require so much duty. He asked how much I had; I replied “twenty five to thirty dollars”. He said okay pay thirty dollars and you can go. At that point I could have argued and then he would have opened every single bag I had to get money out of me. In the back of my mind I knew that I have to get on some kind of list for the next flight; I wanted to get out of customs as soon as possible. I was willing to let go of thirty bucks to not having to waste another hour and not having to open my entire luggage. He called over a uniformed security personnel and asked him to collect thirty dollars. We went into a back room which was run down and dusty. There was another person paying money to another security person/police. I quickly opened my wallet and gave this guy 30 bucks came back to my family, collected my luggage and moved along to find the airline counter.

This type of treatment is a disgrace and they only target resident Indians; any foreign traveler would be oblivious to paying any bribes and would not have any issues. Half of the Indians would argue, they would be willing to open their bags and get out of their situation. They know their odds are about 50%. This has been going on for years; I was put in the same situation years ago but got out without paying anything after half an hour of arguing with the bastards.

Corruption and bureaucracy is rampant in India; this is a prime example. Bombay Airport needs to be privatized and the government needs to put in better controls. I couldn’t believe this is still happening in 2006; obviously it won’t change over night.
I met up with the other two passengers that were with us from the baggage claim; they went through the same ordeal. The elderly lady couldn’t speak English. The professor was helping her along; the customs officer wanted money for her luggage; she only had about 500 rupees ($10) with her; this guy paid $25 for her so she can get out of customs.

Now we were out of all government controlled bureaucracies; I thought the airline would now take care of us and we’ll be home soon. Air India had other plans for us.

We get off the plane relieved that most of our journey is over. We land at 3:08am Indian Standard Time on Saturday, 14th January. At this point I’m thinking the flight wasn’t too bad, let’s just catch our connection and we’ll be home in a couple of hours.

As we walked down the hallway, we were asked if we had a connection to Bangalore, Hyderabad or Madras; they had some information for people connecting to those flights. When I asked a few air india personnel for Ahmedabad we were told “downstairs”. This is the same way you go to clear immigration and customs. I was surprised but no one was there to answer any questions. We just went along with rest of the people. My gut feeling was there was something wrong. We stood in line for the immigration, in a couple of minutes we were cleared through immigration and went towards baggage claim. We’re supposed to be doing this at our final destination and not in Bombay. At the baggage claim we found other passengers wondering the same thing.
We found one of the airport staff who explained that our connecting flight was cancelled or already taken off and we would be told what to do by the airline after we get out of customs.

So we stood at the baggage claim with about two hundred other tired passengers expecting that our baggage would arrive soon. There were only two or three belts and we were the only flight so it wasn’t like they had a lot to do. A few bags trickled in after a few minutes…every five minutes a few more would trickle in. it took us about an hour to get our bags. I checked to see if they had marked our bags with an “X”, this would mean that our bags were to be searched by hand at customs. I didn’t see any. During this hour my son was getting restless, he kept wanting to play with the luggage belt and almost got knocked down by a moving bag. We also met a couple of people from Chicago whom we knew, one of them was a professor at Harper college and another was an elderly lady.

At this point we don’t know how we would catch another plane to get home, we were among many people in a big heard trying to get our bags and clear customs. We were treated more like cattle than airline passengers.