I have for quite some time maintained that Mumbai airport is among the worst in the world, if not the worst. Having visited close to a 100 airports, I don't think it's quite an uninformed opinion either. There are a number of reasons why Mumbai airport beats everyone else hands down in this race - the long waiting lines, the disorganized management of the airport, unfriendly airport staff, scarcity of sign boards to guide people around (specially international travelers), the vultures near the baggage claim area offering to help you clear the customs and so on. Sometimes they make you walk almost half a mile from where they stop your cab to where the airport gate is, at other times you wander aimlessly to find a taxi outside the airport.
Well, all this was in the past and I have been trying hard to get over it. People keep telling me that things have improved a lot and I could notice several positive changes at the domestic terminal myself. But just like the nightmare where I fall of a cliff into a river, bad experiences with Mumbai airport keep coming back to me. Here is the latest one.
It's valentine's day and I am headed to Delhi from where I am supposed to catch a train to Kanpur. My cousin is getting married next week and being quite close to her I made it a point to attend the ceremony. So, I am flying Air India and the flight is at 8 am. I didn't reach home from my office until 1:30 am since I was handing over my work to a colleague. Forced by habit, I had deferred packing for the last moment and started packing only about 2:30 (what did I do between 1:30 and 2:30? check emails of course... didn't I check them while I was in office? of course I did... were there any new emails in this one hour... not really). Since I was going for a wedding I had to pack most of the good clothes I had since I wasn't sure what I would wear. Packing, emails, TV and shower killed the next two hours and I was done by 4:30. Now I had two choices, either go to sleep for a couple of hours and then get up in time for the flight or pull an allnighter. Given my reputation as an extremely bad early riser, I decided I will just stay up.
Later I realized a friend of mine is leaving for Delhi in the morning, though her flight was an hour before mine. So, I thought since I am up and ready anyways, I might as well go to the airport early and hang out with her. Now since she was flying Jetlite and I was on Air India and these two airlines have different terminals, I planned to first check my bag in and then drop by her terminal to say hi. So, I reach the airport and get in the line at the Air India terminal. After 10 minutes of waiting when I reached the door, the security told me that this Air India flight that I am on leaves from the international terminal! And without sparing any extra words or time he asks me to get out of the line. Now suddenly my focus has shifted from meeting my friend to making my flight! How did he know so easily that my flight was leaving from the international terminal? Apparently all flights starting with AI and not IC leave from the intl terminal. Too bad I didn't know because it's obviously not the airline's responsibility at all to tell its passengers that the domestic flight that they are planning to take is not really a domestic flight but an international flight with a Bombay to Delhi domestic leg. I should have totally imagined that... I can understand airlines not being able to predict the departure gates in advance but something that they have known ever since that flight existed and still can't print on my e-ticket or pop up a message at the time of booking or send an SMS is beyond reasoning for me.
Anyways, that's the airline bit. Coming back to the airport - I am not sure why this model emerged but India seems to be the only country where you have different national and international airports in the same city and no attempt is made by the airlines or the airport authorities to distinguish them clearly. Even if you had to keep two airports, some distance apart from each other, for God sake at least provide a decent shuttle service between the two airports and put a sign somewhere as to where the shuttle runs from. I have heard Delhi airport has a shuttle of this sort though never had to use it. The last time I was about to reach the wrong airport in Delhi, my brother told me so on the way and I rectified 'MY' mistake. The reason my brother knows is because he has made that mistake in Delhi and would have missed his flight had he not paid a ridiculous amount of money to a taxi to drive him to the right terminal, they didn't have the shuttle then. But Mumbai for sure has no such service. To make matters more pleasant for the wretched passenger the airport doesn't allow auto-rickshaws and taxis to pick up passengers from the arrival terminal. Now this part beats the hell out of me - you don't run a shuttle, and you don't let anyone else run anything either... great. If you come to drop someone at the airport in a taxi then go figure how would you go back since that cab is not allowed to take you back! What's the way around? C'mon... all Indians know the answer to this question by now... pay more than you have to and pay someone something they don't deserve and you can get the job done. Autos are not allowed to run this route for a normal fee but they can of course do it for about 10 times the fare because then they can bribe whoever would have stopped them from doing it. So yes, I paid a rickshaw exactly that and for some reason I was initially failing to understand the driver took an assistant with him while leaving the airport. When we were near the international terminal, he got down and then his assistant took over the steering and told me that the driver was drunk and was afraid of being caught at the international terminal.
So, I reach the international terminal, ask an airport staff where is the check-in line for my flight to Delhi, got into that line and (I should have been expecting this by now) after waiting for 20 minutes for my turn was told that I am in the wrong line (the lack of a flight no. on top of that counter should have been sign enough for any doubting passengers) and the Delhi flight check in is somewhere hidden behind an adjoining wall (how could I not see it!). So, I go there, check in. They give me a white form where I had to declare that I am not carrying any dutiable goods with me and was told to deposit this form to the customs. Now I am sure there is a separate process somewhere for domestic passengers but the fact that I am totally incapable of reading English or understanding signs, I had to go through the same lines and steps that international passengers do, half of the times being told that I don't need to be here I could have just walked through an oblivious unmarked passage somewhere... Anyways, at every stage I checked if I should give them that white form and the answer was at the next check... well, I am on a train from Delhi to Kanpur right now and the form is still with me. I am going to try the ticket check at Kanpur station... they might want it.
Anyways, after all checks I finally reach the domestic gate for Air India and man, I can't tell you how bad that place was stinking. It was like a damp basement without a window that hasn't seen fresh air for months and you have filled it with sweaty people... that sort of smell... I still had some time in my flight so I went to an international gate. I called up my friend flying to Delhi and wished her Valentine's day (that plan worked out well...) and then decided to write this blog. Since I was up all night, I wanted to grab a coffee while I write. Fortunately there was a cafe right there and I order a Cappuccino with Peach flavor. The guy seemed to take longer than it should and after making the coffee he took the cup to his co-worker and sheepishly asked him, "does this happen to coffee when you add peach to it?" the other guy is like, "No, you can't add flavors to coffee, they are meant only for tea". I felt like I had walked into a "chai ki tapdi" asking for a hazelnut latte with a double shot of espresso. What had happened to the coffee was that the milk had curdled and they tried to blame it on the peach and instead asked me to have a plane cappuccino instead. By that time I had lost the trust in them and walked away and started writing without the coffee.
The flight itself was good and uneventful. They gave us breakfast which was much needed since I was very hungry. It's a good feeling these days to being offered anything on a plane without being asked to pay for it. All said and done, Air India continues to be favourite airline when it comes to food :-)
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