Monday, October 6, 2008

Back in the States!

I just arrived in Newark via Continental flight 49 (a nice direct 16 hr flight from Mumbai to Newark). Have a bit of downtime until my flight to Seattle...

The flight from Mumbai was pretty uneventful. On my outbound flight to Delhi two weeks ago (also on Continental), the plane was equipped w/ AVOD (on-demand audio/video) systems w/ a massive amount of entertainment options. The system on this flight was an older system with a choice of six channels of video and 15 audio channels (continuous looping, not on-demand), so the choices were much more limited.

The food was absolutely terrible on this flight. For the first meal, I choose a "chicken" option. It may have been the worst airline meal ever (which says alot). Here's a pic:
Continental Airlines - international economy in-flight meal
We were also served a snack-pack during the flight...cole-slaw sandwiches...yum.

The second meal was a somewhat scary omelette w/ chicken sausages:
Continental Airlines - international economy in-flight meal
The worst part of the flight was the service orientation of the flight attendants. I did not observe a single smile during the entire flight! What a bunch of grumpies...the crew did not look like they were happy to be there. On one of my trips to the bathroom, a flight attendant bumped into me pretty hard - I immediately said "excuse me" and she didn't even acknowledge me!

Such a stark contrast to the service in India (and Asia in general), where everyone seems to "bend-over-backwards" to SERVE you.

On our intra-India flights (total of three), we flew via Jet Airways. I am now a HUGE fan of Jet. The service was excellent (on-time and efficient) and the food was probably the best airline food I've ever had. Two of our flights were less than an hour in length and we were served full meals! What a refreshing travel experience!

Here's a pic of a meal from one of the Jet flights:
Jet Airways - economy in-flight meal
It really makes me wonder why the U.S. carriers can't do things right. The service experience is like night-and-day. In general - terrible food, surly service, and frequent delays.

Oh well, that's all for now. I have another six hours of flying to look forward to!

1 comment:

AJEYA RAO said...

Food in flight is always horrible for me. Ecspecially wen you are a vegetarian! :-)