Uncooked food, worn out seats: Air India business-class flyer recounts 'nightmare' flight to US

Mumbai: A business-class passenger of a Tata Group-owned Air India New Delhi-Newark flight has alleged that he was served "uncooked" food by the airline and the seats were dirty, describing the journey as "no less than a nightmare".

In a post on the microblogging platform 'X' on Saturday, passenger Vineeth K said that even though he was getting cheaper fares with Gulf carrier Etihad, he had opted for Air India as it operates a non-stop service to the US.

"Yesterday's flight was no less than a nightmare... Booked business class (office trip). The seats were not clean, worn off and of the 35 at least 5 seats were not functional," he said.

Alleging that the flight took off after a 25-minute delay, Vineeth said, "After settling for 30 mins post take off, I wanted to get to sleep (3.30 AM) and realised that my seat doesn’t go to a flat bed, reason it's not working..."

A response from Air India on the matter is awaited.

"After flying with Emirates for a few years, I recently moved to Air India as they offer direct flights to NY, Chicago and London...," the passenger said, adding that these are his frequent travel destinations.

According to Vineeth, he requested the crew for a seat change and was moved to another seat.

"Woke up after a few hours, the food was served and it was uncooked (never faced this in AI), the fruits were stale (everyone onboard returned back)," he alleged in the post.

"TV/Screen never worked. Not that I would have watched, just tried and it showed 'Not Found' error. After all this, final nail in the coffin is they broke my luggage," the passenger added.

"Bad food, worn out seat, dirty seat cover, non-working TV (all) for Rs 500000 (round trip), Damaged my luggage," Vineet K further said.