leonidas

Hello All,

Mrs. Leonidas is on AI 126 in the sky right now. The flight left late by almost 5 hrs due to MX issues. It reaches Delhi at 8:30pm or so, and her next DEL-CCU AI 22 is scheduled at 8:45pm (delayed from original 8:15pm). It's the last scheduled DEL-CCU of the day.

She will likely misconnect. AI phone support just told me that they will run another special flight at night to accommodate misoccnect pax. Is that true?

Otherwise, I assume AI will give hotel etc.?

Thanks.

mrahul

I doubt if AI will run a special flight for misconnect pax...unless they have changed drastically recently...
if they give bad options, there is an early morning goair flight from del-ccu.

SeeBuyFly

They're generally good about providing hotel accommodation. Unfortunately, they may still use the Centaur, which is their own hotel and is a filthy pit. (Admittedly my information is a few years old, maybe they have cleaned it up or demolished it.)

The business about a special flight is BS, only a small fraction of the connecting passengers are going to CCU, are they going to operate an extra flight to everywhere in India?

The big risk is that tomorrow's flights to CCU could be full. I once spent two nights as KLM's guest in a nice Delhi hotel (Sheraton?), years ago, after my flight was late and nothing was available.

B747-437B

Given a choice of the Centaur Hotel or sleeping on the airport floor for 2 days, the airport floor would be the easy and obvious choice.

SpeedFreak

So what happened exactly? My guess is 022 waited for 126 and she did make it, maybe without bags.

oliver2002

AI 126 is still in the air, the drama will unfold tonite...

http://www.flightstats.com/go/Flight...ightNumber=126

That said, AI treated me quite well a year ago in BOM when the domestic was late and I missed my AI coded LH longhaul. Got rebooked after a check with LH (since AI codeshares lapses at T-72h) to the next day and accommodated at a decent business hotel nearby. AI organised a shuttle to pick us up. It took a while to get accomodated and rebooked though. You have to wait for all misconnects to get rebooked, then a list of pax is prepared and led out of the terminal to get permission by the CISF to leave and then you wait for the hotel shuttle bus. The treatment is the same for all, so you have a mix of screming kids, jet lagged etc etc. We were a wild bunch of slave laborers on their way to GCC, some ABCDs and some middle class Indians. The GCC pax needed letters for their employer and immigration (to avoid being fired for not showing up) etc.

ngblr

Delhi had fog today morning and as per Air India website 022 DEL-CCU is expected to leave now by 22.00 hours which is safer if her ORD flight lands at 20.30 or so

Keyser

unfortunately its still standing & still filthy....

i agree....

Keyser

a lot of fog today & i expect there to be more in the evening so there is a good chance her incoming flight might get further delayed....

SeeBuyFly

AI22 was delayed 4 hours and left after midnight, so Mrs. OP was undoubtedly spared the Centaur.

I thought Delhi had overcome fog issues with new radar systems. Of course I no longer fly via Delhi because of horrible memories of fog delays 10+ years ago, so I don't know how much it has improved.

leonidas

Thanks folks! SeeBuyFly is right. Mrs was spared the Centaur. She reached CCU at 2:30. Bags reached too.

Keyser

the fog situation is better but there are still delays....

PVDtoDEL

I was under the impression that the operator, HCI, was spun off from AI as part of Ajit Singh's reforms...?

leonidas

HOLY crap you guys were not kidding.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev..._of_Delhi.html

It's ranked 521 among 595 Delhi hotels! Divorce prevented....phew!

mrahul

let us know how AI handled it