I just flew India to USA in J. I have nothing really new to add, but my main insight on this trip is that it really wouldn't take a whole lot to turn AI into a competitive airline. It could do it with relatively little cost and effort, and a little imagination. It just doesn't do it.
The 777 seat was creaky and wavy, but actually quite comfortable. The FAs were polite and willing. However, service is poorly organized, not the FAs fault but management's fault. The FAs don't seem to know how professional service is done; I didn't get the feeling that they are refusing to do it. If they were allowed to take a few rides on a Gulf airline, they would come back with ideas...
To get a drink or a refill, you have to ask.To get pyjamas, you have to ask (not that the pyjamas are worth asking for). They will give you nuts, and then the drink service doesn't come around for 30 min; then they serve drinks once and go away. No drink service with meals, other than water---unless you ask.
Improving the food would cost more, of course. The food was Y food, or cheap roadside lunch food. Chicken curry, dal, paneer---bland, no effort made to make something interesting or high quality.
The map had the wrong time, and kept zooming in on DEL even when the plane was over Greenland. No one from AI noticed it until I complained, and then they changed it a bit but didn't fix it. Some views had just the tail of the plane peeking in on the edge of the screen. (I remember that Airshow didn't work my last time either, 5 years ago. Maybe it has never worked in those 5 years, and none of the economy passengers ever complained.)
But still, it takes off, you get to sleep, it arrives reliably on the other side of the world; 90% is already in place. You'd think joining *A would have upped their game, but its pretty much what it was 5 years ago.