Many fascinating comments were made by MPs regarding the state of our modern day Pushpak Vimanas and what happens before & after they take to the skies.
Being a part of a parliamentary committee must be a truly cathartic experience. A Member of Parliament can shrug off their political party affiliations and comment on various policy issues with abandon.
It’s basically like the Parliament’s book club where they discuss stuff like Harry Potter and the Freight Subsidy Policy, 50 Shades of Demonetisation and the Curious Case of the missing Customs Duty. You get the gist. Another advantage is that whatever a member says in the committee is confidential and will be presented as the view of the whole committee, not the individual.
Our dear elected representatives seem to have done exactly that if you go by the department related committee ‘Report on Issues related to improving consumers’ satisfaction of airlines’ tabled in Parliament last week. Many fascinating comments were made regarding the state of our modern day Pushpak Vimanas and what happens before & after they take to the skies.
Going by the various news reports on the observations made by the committee, it seems like there is a huge conspiracy underway by evil airlines. Shady executives gather in their boardrooms, dressed like Kilvish from Shaktiman and figure out ways to milk customers to the max, make them extremely uncomfortable and provide an overall horrid flying experience. Evil laughs resound through the corridors after every conspiracy is hatched and approved by the board.
Take the instance of how the committee noticed reports of some private airlines creating long queues at the check-in counters to delay the process of check-in so that passengers miss their scheduled flights. “This compels them to buy tickets at exorbitant prices to travel in the next available flight,” the report said.
Top kek conspiracy! Totally believable though.
Then there were comments on the food served in airlines. Apparently, Jet Airways serves trash and Vistara is all good, food-wise. IndiGo, on the other hand, likes to starve its customers by not providing food on demand and asking customers to pre-book meals. An interesting observation was made about… uh… cold sandwiches, “Every airline should maintain the highest quality of food and they should also change the menu occasionally instead of keeping a cold sandwich in their menu throughout the year.” I feel ya, committee. Those cold sandwiches are truly horrifying.
Here’s the thing about Airline food: Whenever I get served rasgulla at 30,000 feet in the air by a polite lady who gives it to me with a smile and says, “Enjoy, sir”, I turn into jelly. Taking every bite of that rasgulla, I marvel at the amazeballs advancement of humankind to achieve this incredible feat. But when it comes to cold cardboard-like sandwiches which cost 300 bucks apiece, I’m like, “Why do you even try IndiGo?” So, well done representatives. You show em who’s boss. Down with the cold sandwiches!
Speaking of polite ladies who serve rasgullas, the committee had much to say about the behaviour of the airline staff. I can imagine a scene where the chairman Derek O’ Brien said, “OK. So next on the agenda: Airline staff behavior” and the other 30 members of the committee said in unison, “OMG! YES! Let me tell you about the time when that staff from that airline did this horrendous thing to me!” I can imagine the catharsis session getting a bit emotional at this point.
The committee members opined that the staff is very condescending, often uncooperative and downright rude. This collective outrage, obviously, was a result of the recent news media trope of rude airline staffers mishandling passengers and other fellow passengers taking videos to forward on WhatsApp instead of preventing the incident or supporting the victim. Total Black Mirror feels.
CEOs of airlines were summoned and told that this is an institutional problem of unfriendly-ness which is displayed by the short supply of “pleases” and “thank yous” from the staff. To which the oh-so-elitist CEO of Indigo assumed his superior Kilvish form and said, “India did not have the talent required to work in a consumer-facing industry and people hired from ‘mohalla/village schools’ could not be trained to speak fluent English in four or five weeks.”
An evil laugh track must’ve been heard in the background while he said this.
The committee was displeased with his observation, obviously, and said that the exponentially growing airlines should provide soft skills training to the staff instead of blaming youngsters from Tier II and Tier III cities. One member observed, “”the attitude of airlines staff is as if they are on some high ground and the passengers are like herds, as if passengers are uneducated and illiterate ones who do not know anything, who have not flown before.” Brings back fond memories of a particular person who declared he will travel ‘cattle class in solidarity with all our holy cows’
See, this is why I keep saying committee hearings need to be telecast live. Interactions like these are gold-standard and are only possible when elected representatives are involved. Especially when an important point about insufficient leg-space for tall people is made.
The committee desired that “the ministry of civil aviation may prepare a guideline laying down a minimum space standard in respect of seats and legroom.” Frequently flying tall people everywhere watching television would’ve gone wild. “Yaz! More leg space in our Pushpak Vimanas,” they would’ve screamed.
Such catharsis much wow indeed.
Meghnad S is a political analyst and a Parliament nerd. After working with MPs across party lines for the past six years, he now hosts a webseries titled ‘Consti-tuition’, which breaks down parliament in a fun, relatable way.