Editors¿
Choice?
So is
United Airlines a lousy airline which loses your baggage and treats Indian
passengers shabbily? Or it is a world class airline that gives very special
treatment to those in a position to write about it?
United Off to a Flying Start Hindustan Times By Vir Sanghvi |
United colours of bad behaviour Indian Express , By Shekhar Gupta |
Advantages to travelling out of
India at this time of year. Economy fares are cheap, many airlines offer free
companion tickets in Business Class, and just for once, it isn¿t impossible
to find a seat on a flight leaving India. |
Here is an important tip for rich NRIs. If you want
to get your parents insulted, send them tickets to travel by United Airlines.
Not only do its cabin crew patronise its first class passengers, they have a
special talent for putting the economy classwallas in their place. And the
older the passenger, the ruder they seem to get. On a flight between Delhi
and London last week, an old couple, obviously visiting their well-to-do NRI
son in the US, were not sure what the small plastic bottle the stewardess
handed out to them contained. ¿¿Tell him it¿s waa-ter, waa-ter,¿¿ she told
the old lady. The accent beat the old woman, leading to much sniggering until
the lone Hindi-speaking stewardess was summoned and asked to help out amid
generous giggles. Then came the turn of another old uncleji who was
struggling a bit with his pouch of sugar. This upset yet another stewardess.
¿¿Now will someone tell him it is tea and he better not spill it on himself
or others?¿¿ she asked no one in particular. If the United crew find Indian passengers such a
pain, why do they bother to fly to India? The truth is that they now bring 14
flights to New Delhi every week, one leaving every night for each coast of
the US. If the planes are full, it is not because of some special magic
worked by Rono Dutta, United¿s famed Indian CEO, but because - along with
British Airways and Lufthansa - United is now fighting for the status of
India¿s flag carrier. Who else can you blame if your own, alleged, national
carrier is in such a mess, down to just about 20 aircraft and reaching you
almost nowhere except the Gulf and a handful of western destinations? Any
self-respecting nation deserves an airline that at least won¿t insult old
people. We have run ours into the ground and will now take so long
privatising it that by then the entire market would have been cornered by
truly lousy airlines like United. And yet we will be squabbling about the
value of this piece of family silver, there will be cries of it being sold
for a song, PILs, strikes and so on. By the way, I had better be careful just in case
somebody at United is reading this. I have taken three flights with them over
the week and they have already lost my baggage twice. I have two more before
I reach home and I am counting my beads, a bit like the hapless old parents
in the back rows. American humorist P.J. O¿Rourke once wrote Germans are so
rude that it is not surprising that that is the country where Israelis learnt
their manners. Now, I bet, Lufthansa would gain from getting United to train
their crew. |