gottaluvNW

If I had to choose between them in economy I would fly AI.
UA and all equivalent legacy carriers - you do get treated like cattle...

Business - I would fly AI but only after confirming the seat configuration of the AI flight (all else will likely be the same experience.)

aktchi

Who cares what happens with the repairs once you reached you US destination? The OP is flying BOM-EWR, not EWR-BOM.

Seriously, I believe AI would be superior to US carriers in cabin service. In case of irrops, AI and UA would be equlally bad, especially if you have no status. There is expected to be some home-turf advantage during irrops, so I would prefer AI for India-USA, but UA for USA-India.

adventuroustraveller

Never flown them, but my Indian friends and associates decried them.
So I went with jet and (the now sadly defunct) kingfisher.
My friends said AI is unreliable. Cancellations, strikes etc

Keyser

people tend to have a bad impression about ai & most of these people are those who have either never flown them or flew them many years ago....having taken over 100 flight with them this year, i can safely say that they are as reliable or unreliable as pretty much all the other airlines i've been on....

skywardhunter

I've had two attempts at HYD - BOM this year on AI, and I say attempts because only one of those worked out. AI is beyond a doubt the most unreliable airline I've come across, except perhaps Spicejet for the two months at the end of last year when they were on the brink of bankruptcy and cancelling flights.

In April I was going to speak at a conference booked on AI HYD - BOM, around 10am, it's an international connector from Jeddah. At midnight I get an SMS that the flight is postponed to 1pm. No biggy, it's a 1 hour hop, I'll be there in time for the evening engagement...

Well, wake up at 7am and what's that? Flight delayed to 8:30pm. A whopping 10 hour delay!!! I would now arrive at the venue around 3 hours after I was due to speak. I ended up having to book a last minute ticket on Spicejet.

Fast forward a few months to July, same AI flight, plane connects to Bombay from Jeddah via Hyd. Flight was "only" half an hour late, but then we had one of AI's wonderful 747s, probably the first one ever built by how old it looked and smelled. It took me back to the 90s with an IFE the size of an Apple watch (and didn't work). It smelt a little like an Indian government office. The rattling of the cabin was horrendous, it must've been over a decade since the last refurb, and then in the monsoon the pilots slammed us down onto the runway for good measure, surprised the plane didn't fall apart... To say AI is as good as any other carrier out there just shows that you've not travelled on any other carrier out there

I always book Indigo when I can domestic in India, it's like a 5-star hotel's air-conditioned lobby to Air India's mosquito-riddled road-side dhaba at the peak of summer.

Keyser

i've traveled on more than most & i still stand by my comment....

having said that, i would like to point out that i am no fan of ai but i don't hate them either....i use them because they are the only full service carrier besides jet (vistara has too few routes at the moment) that fly the routes i usually travel on....i swore of jet a few years ago & have hardly flown them since....

90% of my ai flights are absolutely fine....on time, good service in the air, pretty uneventful for the short duration of the flight....just got off another ai flight a few hours ago....flight took off 10 minutes late, condition of the equipment was fine & so was the service....

indigo is the one airline i never use....they have this policy that they can't change of cancel your ticket if there are less than 2 hours left before your flight....i often find myself in a situation where i need to make a change at the last minute & the indigo call center cannot do anything at that point....

oliver2002

One big thing to remember is AIs domestic and international operation are two completely different animals. @:-)

deovrat

Agree with this. Most domestic routes still feature pm-IC crew and pm-AI crew (which are vastly better) get most international routes.

avcritic

Comparing domestic to international is a misleading PR technique used by ME3. General public believe them, not knowing they are just one airport, two aircraft type international only operations.

On the topic how AI handles repairs in USA (vs) UA in India.

UA dispatches parts/AOG teams from Hong Kong/USA to India for repair bigger than LN MX can take care. It is cheap because AOG handling is part of their mx outsourcing but Visa/Customs process can be longer.

AI uses outstation MX contractor for most repairs, unless major like engine replacement.

AI 788 reverse thruster damage at BHX is a good example. UTC shipped part and Monarch replaced it. It took two weeks for UTC to ship the part because it was not in stock.

In contrast when UA 772 had an engine cowl damage, part came from Hong Kong and AOG teams came from Hong Kong and USA.

AI shipped 77W GE90 to EWR, 788 GEnX to BUD from India.

shonamac

Er, could you translate that into English, please?

Actually if you can simply 'de-abbreviate' it (just like de-icing), it will be fine.

PVDtoDEL

Perhaps you should verify these claims before passing them off as advice. AI gets a bad rap from people who have rarely/never flown it, but most people who actually give it a try will find a better experience than the likes of UA. I say that after flying 12 segments on AI and 37 segments on UA this year.

oliver2002

AOG: aircraft on ground
LN MX: line maintainance

Monarch: http://www.monarchaircraftengineering.com/
UTC: http://utcaerospacesystems.com/custo...s/repairs.aspx

AI's MRO activities were spun off into a new company called AIES^

avcritic

Thank You. Didn't realize that I used too many abbreviations.

gMikki14

My parents immigrated from India in the 70's.
They said Air India has improved 10 fold in that time. They are Atl local so the whole family loves Delta, but they used Air India for a connection in May and said it was wonderful. I'm pretty sure they upgraded but I flew once (short flight) economy so I could get to Goa in 2000 and it was fine. No complaints. Man flying was different back then. They bought new planes, I read about a year ago.

ashishp

In my experience, most people who b***h about AI havent flown the airline in years and its mostly hearsay!

Again based on my experience of 50 odd flights in 2 years, AI is fine once you board the aircraft - great food, great pitch in economy, clean aircraft and usually on time! Also with Jet in the pooper since 2012 or so, AI has the best FF program as of now! It was the reason I switched back then and havent regretted it!

Its the ground staff at Air India that bug me. They have this weirdly detached manner of doing their job which just bugs me! But atleast they are somewhat competent! The incompetent JetChildren may you wish you were flying Air India!