Another fact?

Or is this also going to become yet another denial-slash-recantation?

AI ground staff (and call center staff as well) tend to be competent. You just have to convince them to use that competence to actually do work instead of disappear on their next tea break

Website has improved quite a bit recently. Remember when I quoted that IIT grad calling the AI website "smooth and intuitive" ? The recent redesign has been a smashing success. Clearly you disagree

Ugh. Saying "It is a fact that XYZ is *insert subjective form adjective here*" doesn't mean that it is a fact and not an opinion. To be able to tell them apart, you need to have passed a high school English course. Clearly you forget all the content you learned

What are you smoking and where can I get some

I just hit www.airindia.in, and its annoying how often the mouse loses focus while navigating between the header and the nested options!

As to AI being "better" than QF, yet again, I'd disagree. The international hard product (especially the flagship version) is much better on the QF A380's (and being retrofitted to 747s and 330s). On ground experience is extremely competent without having to convince the staff to do their job.

I have no such problems - that has more to do with your browser settings than it has to do with the design of the website.. I agree that it is very annoying on the websites which I do have that problem on though...
*shrug* You're entitled to your opinion...

Although if you say that AA, IB, or S7 is better than AI, it'll be my turn to ask the question

Well I think the website was horrible before and still quite mediocre now. Examples:
1. For example, for a long time there was no "forgot password" feature on the Flying Returns website. They recently put up a "request new password" link, but the link has always been broken.
2. Look at:
http://airindia.in/SBCMS/Webpages/De...ns.aspx?mid=26
The contact email addresses for station managers in cities like Kathmandu and Dhaka are yahoo.com addresses, not airindia.com addresses. That's extremely bush league in my view.
3. Check out:
http://airindia.in/SBCMS/Webpages/In...y.aspx?MID=27#
It's pretty bush league (as you can see this is one of my favorite words to describe the AI website) how the menu on the left goes beyond the frame of the page.

One might argue that these are relatively harmless errors. But someone like me loses faith in the actual running of this airline because I perceive the managers to have a similar, constant lack of attention to detail. I would not want to fly an airline like this because the management comes across as generally apathetic and uninterested in their job (which is about providing me with good service, both inside and outside the aircraft).

Dude, seriously? I know you had a smiley face, so this was said tongue in cheek. But when you yourself think that the AI staff don't do their job (whether incompetence or laziness or whatever), how can we believe that you really are not an AI troll?

Oh, I've never had that experience. But I've heard of others who have...

AI staff in my experience have been competent, courteous, and *insert positive adjective that starts with c here*.

Well, I'm using the same browser (on a laptop) to browse that website as I am to benchmark the website of other airlines I've used in the recent past. QF, SQ, VA, DL

It's a fair apples to apples comparison.

Except, none of what I said was based on an "opinion".

Skybed MkII and the First Class Suite on QF are atleast as good if not better than the hard product in J and F on Air India. The added components of on ground and in-air service delivery makes it even better.

And you'll not find the need to "convince the staff to use their competence to serve the customer than look for their tea break" at any QF station (and this would hold true for any of the airlines that, through this thread, have been named as the benchmark airlines).

I've not flown AA, IB or S7 so I can't comment.

I have however flown SQ, CX, QF, VA and DL, to/from/through each of their hubs, and the experience on the ground, in the air, while booking, service delivery/requests has been what I'd expect from a "fantastic" airline.

The only airline that I'd hesitate to book over AI would be DL (and even then the ability to earn FF miles on my program would cause me to lean to DL)

Not at all - my browser has the same issue on the old United website. Most other people's browsers didn't have any problems on that website... Certain browsers view certain websites better than others. A better way to be able to tell if a website is "better" or "worse' is to see how often this issue exists. Since so far our sample size is 2, this isn't a particularly reliable dataset...

Be thankful sir!
Of those airlines, I have only flown DL. And I would pick AI every single time if DL was my other option. It wouldn't even be close... Sometimes DL makes AI's customer service seem like the best in the world...

That's a fair analysis... FWIW, the Jet Airways website also has some staff members with yahoo/gmail email addresses as well, so not quite unique to AI... But yes, very bush league

However, sometimes the mediocrity is what makes AI's website one of my favorites. How many other websites give the kind of detailed info about interline agreements that AI's does? How many supply engineering drawings instead of seat maps? Sure, it's unprofessional and not quite "world class" - however, it makes this avgeek very happy indeed.

Releasing such information might make AI an interesting website to study and analyze. But not to fly. When I fly, I want it to be on an airline that is extremely professionally run and takes care of me.

Why would a normal pax need the former?

Then why are you so proud about it?

PVDtoDEL in almost 10 years of posting and viewing on FT, I have never once chosen to use the "ignore poster" option to mask posts.

Please please do not make me start now, but these constant "AI is the best thing since sliced bread" posts are getting very tiring. Especially when appearing in every second thread on this forum.

Thanks.

Normal pax don't need it.

I like it though, because I'm an aviation geek. The fact that I like it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone else will (and I'd assume they won't).