I was born in India, then lived in the US for 13 years, moved back to India for 23 years, and am now living in the US again.

Throughout those years, I must have made 100 trips between the US and India. Maybe 10% were on Air India, and that even mostly in the late 70's when we lived in a suburb of NYC.

Why did we fly foreign carriers (mostly LH back then, but also SQ/TG/UA/EK/BA) as opposed to AI?:

1. Unreliable service by AI. Frequent delays. I have been stranded at BOM and CCU airports before.
2. Poor service. Once I was kicked out of Business class in the 80's because the pilot had a friend in economy that he wanted upgraded. Seriously.
3. Very limited coverage. Just NYC/ORD etc.
4. No affiliation with a global FFP.

It had nothing to do with foreign vs Indian. AI was fine if you were going to NYC, but elsewhere in the US you might as well forget about, unless you wanted to interline and take an additional domestic flight. This wasn't the case with LH in the 80's either. With so many flights, they covered so many of the major US cities back then, too (ATL etc)


Sadly, the drawbacks are still the same today as well:

1. How many non stop flights from India are there to the US on Indian carriers, outside of NYC ? None ?
2. How many cities are served in the US by Indian carriers ? 2 or 3 ?
3. Are any of the Indian carriers flying to the US members of a global airline alliance ?

I would love to travel on an Indian carrier but have been unable to because of the reasons above.

Jet briefly had service from SFO to BOM (I think), but they withdrew it. Even then, it wasn't set up properly. When you reached PVG, they made you stay in an enclosed room for 2-3 hours with no water, bathrooms, lounges etc. You weren't allowed in the transit area. That just isn't acceptable.

People living in India realize this, and that's why stick to a foreign carrier with inferior food and an extra transit point in Asia/Europe/Middle East.

There's no snob factor in sitting in Y on LH/BA etc.