India is approximately one-third the size of the United States.
300 million people live in the US.
India has 1.2B people -- four times as many people in 1/3 the area.
Hmmmm. No wonder it seems crowded there....
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
Returning to India -- 2001
I live in Massachusetts, but I spent about a year working three or four days each week as a project manager on a large customer engagement in Charlotte, NC. I decided to focus the air travel on Delta -- and at the end of that gig, I had quite an impressive collection of SkyMiles. So for our next trip to India, we used SkyMiles to purchase two business class seats. Delta flies to Mumbai from Kennedy, via Paris... so we started in Boston with a short hop from Logan to Kennedy. Arrived at the airport way, way early, as is our custom. If memory serves, we were scheduled for about a two hour wait between flights once we arrived at Kennedy. Our Boston flight was late... and later... and later. There was barely controlled pandemonium at the gate, since it seemed that just about every traveler was taking that flight only to make some complicated international connection out of Kennedy.... and now all of those connections were in jeopardy. We waited in the line to talk to the agent.... but it was pretty clear that our flight from Boston to NY was not going to arrive in time for us to make our connection to Paris. So, being calm and reasonable sorts of travelers, we returned to our comfy plastic chairs to see when/if we would make it to NY, and just figured that we would figure it out from there.. probably spending the night near Kennedy, and going into NYC for a while the next day until it was time to go to Paris. Then a voice above the melee called my name - and there was an agent, beckoning us urgently to the desk. She asked if we would be willing to fly Air France to Paris instead of Delta to NY to Paris, connecting in Paris with our originally scheduled flight. Sure! You bet! Absolutely! The Air France flight was in a different wing of the airport, and was leaving immediately. Our agent zipped us up to the main ticketing desk, where another (very, very confused) agent could not understand why we were switching, where we were switching... and the minutes were ticking by. Finally our first agent managed to get it straightened out... and then zoomed us through security (again), and we literally ran up to the gate for the Air France flight which was at that point being held for us. We entered the plane and the door slammed shut behind us.
We figured that our business class seats were a memory... but were happily surprised to be seated in business class on the Air France flight. Now we knew that our luggage was on the flight to NY, and that we were now luggage-less.... but we were prepared for a luggage emergency, and had toiletries and some clothing in our carry-ons. No problem at all.
Six or so hours later, we're at Charles de Gaulle, several hours ahead of our original flight from NY. I checked with ticketing, explaining the whole story... that we were NOT on the flight we were supposed to be on from NY, but would need to join that same flight when it left Paris for Mumbai. No problem, they said. I checked several times, with different people. Each told me No Problem. When our flight to Mumbai was called, we joined the pushing crowd ready to board the plane. Got all the way up to the desk... and then (imagine my surprise... ) were told that we were not on the manifest from NY. Went through the story two or three more times... and then mirabile dictu, we boarded the plane and again, our business class seats were available.
Another uneventful flight, and we landed in Mumbai. Now we *knew* that we had no luggage. We also knew that we had a flight to Jaipur the following morning which would need to be rescheduled, since our luggage would not arrive until the following night. As we deplaned, a Delta guy was looking for us. He was full of apologies for our missing luggage... I mean, this man was just abjectly apologetic about the situation. This was intriguing and amusing, since we had no idea that anyone would even *care* about our luggage problem! He walked us over to Air India, and explained that we needed to move our flight out one day... the Air India agent gave us (I kid you not) a *note* to bring back with us. (Ha, we said, as if THAT has any chance of working!!!!) Our friendly Delta guy booked us a reservation at a lovely hotel near the airport, and saw us to a cab. The surprising part of Delta's extraordinary customer service - these tickets had cost us nothing, we were flying all on miles.
We spent the next day sleeping a bit, and also hired a car to drive us around Mumbai just so that we could see where we were. At midnight I returned to the airport (no one seems to know why all flights in and out of India are between midnight at 3AM), and with only a minor scuffle with security (who did not want to let me in to get my luggage, since I did not have a ticket for that day... sigh.... but we straightened that out), was able to find our luggage and return to the hotel.
Quite an adventure. The next day... back to the airport, with our luggage and with our note from the night we arrived.... and to our great relief, the agent took the note, and with no difficulty, turned our note into two tickets.... and we were off to Jaipur.
We figured that our business class seats were a memory... but were happily surprised to be seated in business class on the Air France flight. Now we knew that our luggage was on the flight to NY, and that we were now luggage-less.... but we were prepared for a luggage emergency, and had toiletries and some clothing in our carry-ons. No problem at all.
Six or so hours later, we're at Charles de Gaulle, several hours ahead of our original flight from NY. I checked with ticketing, explaining the whole story... that we were NOT on the flight we were supposed to be on from NY, but would need to join that same flight when it left Paris for Mumbai. No problem, they said. I checked several times, with different people. Each told me No Problem. When our flight to Mumbai was called, we joined the pushing crowd ready to board the plane. Got all the way up to the desk... and then (imagine my surprise... ) were told that we were not on the manifest from NY. Went through the story two or three more times... and then mirabile dictu, we boarded the plane and again, our business class seats were available.
Another uneventful flight, and we landed in Mumbai. Now we *knew* that we had no luggage. We also knew that we had a flight to Jaipur the following morning which would need to be rescheduled, since our luggage would not arrive until the following night. As we deplaned, a Delta guy was looking for us. He was full of apologies for our missing luggage... I mean, this man was just abjectly apologetic about the situation. This was intriguing and amusing, since we had no idea that anyone would even *care* about our luggage problem! He walked us over to Air India, and explained that we needed to move our flight out one day... the Air India agent gave us (I kid you not) a *note* to bring back with us. (Ha, we said, as if THAT has any chance of working!!!!) Our friendly Delta guy booked us a reservation at a lovely hotel near the airport, and saw us to a cab. The surprising part of Delta's extraordinary customer service - these tickets had cost us nothing, we were flying all on miles.
We spent the next day sleeping a bit, and also hired a car to drive us around Mumbai just so that we could see where we were. At midnight I returned to the airport (no one seems to know why all flights in and out of India are between midnight at 3AM), and with only a minor scuffle with security (who did not want to let me in to get my luggage, since I did not have a ticket for that day... sigh.... but we straightened that out), was able to find our luggage and return to the hotel.
Quite an adventure. The next day... back to the airport, with our luggage and with our note from the night we arrived.... and to our great relief, the agent took the note, and with no difficulty, turned our note into two tickets.... and we were off to Jaipur.
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