Once upon a time, the Maharajah wearing a turban, smiled engagingly, and served you warm towels. Today, he serves you cockroaches in your omelette and plummets you 10,000 feet to death. Welcome to Air India, 2.0. When the Tatas took over the airline in 2022, it was hailed as a corporate coronation: the return of the prodigal to its original home, to be lovingly nursed back to world-class splendour. Instead, it’s a Titanic with wings. Let’s not mince words: passengers have died. Before, too. When AI 171 fell out of the sky in Ahmedabad, the world was told it was a tragedy. No, it was a reckoning. It lasted 30 seconds in the air. It cost over 270 lives. Days later, a Delhi-bound AI Dreamliner returned to Hong Kong, its airport of origin, after the pilot suspected a technical issue.
He said, “We don’t want to continue further.”—a clear indication that the traumatised pilot would rather go back to base than trust his machine. Another flight from San Francisco to Mumbai was stuck in Kolkata because of a technical snag. Yet another was forced back to Delhi post-takeoff due to technical failure—marking yet another unscheduled diversion. On Tuesday, Air India cancelled seven international flights, including six operated by Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners, as part of precautionary checks on its Dreamliner fleet, following heightened safety scrutiny by aviation authorities in the aftermath of the Ahmedabad crash.
What’s it like to fly Air India? Imagine your toddler peeling back an omelette mid-meal in Business Class to find a dead cockroach; the kid got food poisoning. Air India’s response—it acknowledged the incident and said it was investigating the matter with its catering service provider. Previously a flight to London was grounded after a passenger saw a rat on the plane and rat traps had to be laid. Another Air India flight was delayed for 12 hours after a mouse was spotted in the cabin just as the plane was about to take off. Meanwhile, passengers post viral videos of filthy trays, ripped furnishings, dirty seats and broken in-flight entertainment system—that too in a First Class seat that cost $6,300.
Welcome to the premium experience. While Gulf carriers unveil silent cabins, inflight spas, and whisper-quiet jets, Air India offers torn safety cards and lukewarm tea. It’s a special kind of irony that while it dreams of launching 3D-printed handbags and perfumes, its flying culture stinks. Radical reform is required: fleet audits, safety transparency, actual accountability. The DGCA has flagged Air India multiple times for violations—crew duty time violations, mechanical delays, and safety protocol breaches. A senior pilot-turned-whistleblower, revealed that emergency oxygen systems on 777s were tampered with—management threatened him after raising these issues internally. Most strange is that Singapore Airlines, which has 25.5 per cent stake seems to have thrown Air India under the (air)bus.
Its accountability must be questioned and those responsible for passenger safety punished, even as Air India shoulders most of the blame.
There was a time when flying Air India meant something. The Maharajah smiled beatifically from boarding passes. The crew wore saris as heritage symbols. Mango juice came in actual glasses. And even if the flight was a tad late, it felt vaguely aristocratic to be part of the nostalgia. What we’re witnessing now is the slow, grinding disintegration of India’s national airline: one mid-air emergency, one torn seat, one cockroach-laced omelette at a time. The $400-million fleet upgrade plan is barely moving on the tarmac. The Tatas know passengers have little choice after numerous airlines shut shop: today it is just Indigo and Air India.
It’s time for real accountability
· Ground all Dreamliners until third-party audits confirm safety.
· Release full maintenance logs, incident reports, and fleet age profiles.
· Conduct pest and hygiene inspections via independent caterers.
· Reinforce crew rest protocols and establish a safe whistleblower system.
· Mandate transparent progress updates publicly.
Or the next cockroach in the omelette? It could be yours.