Trifter

Recently, I travelled to India on holiday from London. Delhi, in India, to be specific. I knew it was going to be a long journey because I had to first I had to travel to Heathrow airport from my home in Essex. Get the long flight from Heathrow to Delhi, get off at Indira Gandhi Airport (New Delhi) and go on to the domestic airport to get another flight to Hyderabad, another city in India. From Hyderabad, I had another cab journey to the city where I was going to stay. I knew it was going to be 24 hours of relentless travelling and mentally prepared myself to keep me energised for the duration.

So anyway, fast forward a bit, I got on to my flight from Heathrow. It was an Air India one. For all those who aren’t very familiar with Air India, it is one of India’s biggest airlines and has been running for a very long time. Well, after we got on, my dad, my sister and I went to look for our seats. When we got to it, horror crippled my mind. It was going to be the seats beside the toilets. In all of my flying experience (which is a lot) I have never EVER sat beside the toilets. I knew that because of the long duration of the flight, people would need the loo all of the time and because it was an overnight flight, it probably would be twice as worse. But I mentally braced myself and told myself that it would be all okay. Sadly I was mistaken because from the very start, everything just swirled into a downhill vortex.

Firstly, the quality of the flight wasn’t the most pleasurable. One of the arms of my seat was rocking slightly from the right to the left. It was fairly stable but any extra pressure on it especially while I was asleep would probably end up breaking it. Next, was the little screen on which you can see movies and TV shows, listen to music and play games. For those who aren’t so sure, nearly every long journey flight has these individual touch-screen TVs to keep you entertained for the duration. Well, mine wasn’t touch-screen although many others’ was, so I had to resort to using the remote control which had a very annoying little ‘switch on the light’ button. While it was tucked away into the armchair, even the slightest bit of pressure would result in the light bulb above me getting switched on, which was alright up to a certain extent but at bed time, it was incredibly annoying to see the light get switched on every time I leaned towards the remote. Now, I am a TV lover and I never miss a good bit of telly so even though I had to use the remote, I decided to explore all of the movies, TV shows and music they had offer. I was shocked at the minute amount of films and TV shows they had. There were only 4 English films, about 10 Hindi films and the rest were films for other languages which I didn’t bother taking a look at. Although 4 may seem a lot to some, this was no where the amount of films that some other airlines had. Others had up to a hundred but there were hardly any on here. Oh, by the way, did I tell you that the games that you could play on the screen wouldn’t work? I jabbed the button but there were no games at all despite the button on the screen. As a result, I decided that was going to be no TV for me and I was alright with it. One plus side was that the meals were quite good but the downside to it was that by the time I could actually have my meal, it was easily 11pm or 12 pm maybe. I’ve never had my meals so late and considering I had been travelling since 3:30 pm the same day, I was quite hungry.

Soon, bed time arrived. I thought it would be fine after that, but this was when I started seeing the true effect of the toilet side seats. Throughout the night, people seemed to have this unbearable need to the toilet beside me. There was an army of people constantly going to and fro to the toilet. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to sleep because I had a long journey ahead of me but all I felt was a first flash of light (the toilet door opening), then I could hear the flush and that finished off with a second flash o light (the toilet door closing). Sometimes the third flash of light was a prolonged one which was some people not shutting the door of the toilet after they had used it. This was something that really disturbed my seat because I had to get up at least 4 times to shut that door and once, when I couldn’t be bothered, a steward shut it for me. Disturbed and sleepless, I decided to use the toilet and once I went in there, it was absolutely disgusting. There were no facial tissues, something that I really needed because flight journey always congest my nose and the toilet paper roll was nearly finishing and using the second roll would be a task because there was something on it which really resembled dried blood. Understandably the toilet would be dirty because of the men, women, children and babies who used it.

Finally. Morning. After the entire toilet fiasco, it was time to brush up. Normally, from experience, as soon as you get on the flight, the flight crew give you a little pack with earphones for the TV, a sleep mask, a pair of compression socks and a mini tooth brush and tooth paste for the morning. I must say, I got NONE of these except the earphones which were handed out in a little plastic packet. When my dad enquired with the crew if there were any tooth brushes and tooth pastes, their reply was a ‘no’. I wondered, how on god’s green earth did they expect us to get our own tooth brush and tooth paste especially if you aren’t allowed to bring liquids and gels on board which would ultimately render the tooth brush pointless. After another morning meal, finally it was time we landed in Delhi.

I can describe that as the plane ride from hell. It was pure displeasure everywhere. But soon, I wondered, who is to blame for a bad plane ride. Is it London Heathrow airport, that despite the high standards it sets for the airports round the world, it still allows flights of such abysmal quality to serve it’s passengers, especially after they have paid an excess of 400 British Pound Sterling for it? Or is it the fault of Air India, that even though they are one of India’s biggest airline service, they can still disappoint? Are the people who were on the flight to blame for misusing a flight and putting it into such a condition that it was impossible for others to use? Or am I to blame that I went on the flight with a cynical mind before hand that I perceived everything negatively?

That’s for you to decide. For me, this plane journey was just horrible and I (being biased) would blame everyone but myself but at the end of the day, if you pay for something (and if you pay a lot for something), you mustn’t accept more that a 100% of it. I’m pretty sure that there would be someone to agree with me on that.