Home > Air India > 2007 > Review

Taken 12 September 2007 from Los Angeles, CA (Los Angeles International Airport) - LAX to Frankfurt (Rhein-Main) - FRA

We booked with Air India for our trip from Los Angeles to Frankfurt because they offered the lowest prices by far. It was much lower than any other airline. We were skeptical, of course, but figured - it's a direct flight and it's much cheaper. How bad could it be?

How bad? Very, very bad.

UNCOMFORTABLE: I'll start with our seats. They were FAR too close to the seats in front of us. It was beyond just having "not much leg room" - there was nearly NO leg room. I am only 5' 2" and my knees kept hitting the seat pocket in front of me. My 6' 2" husband could not even sit straight - he had to shift his legs to the side or sit with them far apart just to fit into his chair. Our seats on the return flight did not recline properly - only about 1/2" to 1" of recline. The seats in front of us reclined about 8" - 10" (approximately), thereby putting the backs of their seats into our faces. Since we could not recline, we were stuck there. Wedged in. There was also a high-pitched squeal that rang out intermittently throughout the night and kept us both up. It was coming from a water spigot behind us.

FILTHY: The entire plane was filthy and badly in need of cleaning. Carpets stained, upholstery stained, plastic stained, etc. The restrooms especially were disgusting. Dirty, messy, in disarray and not properly stocked - and they smelled like outhouses. I visited three total restrooms throughout the two flights and they were all equally filthy. The panels in the restrooms (panels that hold things like towels, tissues, etc) were falling off in all three of the restrooms I visited. It was downright dangerous.

FALLING APART: Both air crafts were quite literally falling apart and badly in need of repairs and/or upgrades. The upholstery and carpets were coming loose, plastic peeling off, and many items throughout the cabin were held together with tape. Some tray tables either fell down or were stuck upright (therefore unusable). About half of the seat pockets we saw were bent down and remained permanently open by about 6" (reducing leg room even more). We saw several tray tables and seat pockets that were held together with (and I am not exaggerating) plastic bags that had been tied to them, and one tray table that was staying up only because someone had wedged it with part of a People magazine and a rubber band. There was some sort of sticky substance dripping out of the overhead bins above us, and many of the foot rests would not stay up.

INOPERABLE: The TV monitors mounted to the ceilings here and there on the plane were very old. Some worked, others had flipping, blurry or static screens and/or the color, contrast or brightness was way off. But that didn't really matter because on neither flight were we able to properly hear the audio. On the return flight our entire row (and about six or seven other complete rows in our immediate area) did not work. On the first flight some of the audio in our row didn't work at all. One seat just emitted a high-pitched squeal, and two of the seats got audio that was muffled and incoherent. Even if we had gotten audio and a good picture, though, we probably wouldn't have watched the poor selection of films and random side-show acts that were shown.

RUDE: While some of the staff was civil, several of the flight crew members really rubbed us the wrong way or were downright rude. After a long period of not seeing any crew members, my husband (who was very thirsty) rang his call button. After about 10 minutes, the call button light (and the lights of about two other passengers who also rang) were cleared - and no crew members entered the cabin. My husband (and other passengers) rang again. Finally after about 10 more minutes a crew member came out. About 20 minutes later my husband finally got his drink. One female crew member, when passing out food in the morning, raised her voice repeatedly to try and wake a fellow passenger who was sleeping. The passenger's arm was resting on her tray table. When shouting at the passenger didn't wake her, the crew member shoved a tray of food across the tray and into the passenger's arm - then walked off. This was the same crew member who, at the start of the flight, told my husband get up and shut overhead bins for her because she said couldn't reach (though, she was as tall as I was and I could have easily done it.)

MISERABLE: When we landed on the return flight, we sat on the runway for about 30 minutes before we got to the gate. Now, I understand that sometimes this happens if the gate is still being used by a previous flight. The problem was, they shut off the power - so all the air stopped flowing. It quickly became hot, stuffy and smelly. Before long people were literally having trouble breathing.

FOOD: Most of it was disgusting and inedible to me, but I’m willing to concede this may just be my own personal taste. On the way there we were served mutton (there was supposed to be a chicken dish, too – but they were out of it.) The mutton was very dry and extremely spicy. I couldn’t eat it. Also served was plain, sour yogurt and some sort of stringy, chunk-tapioca like desert that I didn’t recognize or care for. On the way back it was very similar with very spicy food. In the morning they served us a sandwich on white bread (to my delight), but when I opened it, inside was mayo, red peppers and something else – possibly eggplant? I did not care for any of the food I was served, and the coffee (if you were lucky enough to get some, was very weak.

CHEAP: Yes, the prices are cheaper by far for many flights. But is it a value? That’s up to you. I do not think of it as a value. While we are not wealthy and price is a huge factor on our vacations, I would definitely not fly with Air India again unless there were no other options. Hindsight is 20/20 … and I would definitely go back and spend more money for any other airline if I could turn back time.

HIGH POINTS: Yes, there were two high points. One was a male crew member who honestly tried to help people out and looked into many of the problems passengers brought to his attention. The other high point was that on the return flight we had a very smooth landing. I really can’t think of any other positives.