Jolly's Volley: AI need #AI

Caveat: This article was not written by #chatgpt and will hopefully bring a smile to your face:)

Those who know me know two interesting traits about me – that the only real skill I learned in high school in the US was typing (I can type about 80-100 words per minute); and that I crank out blogs during my long flights between US and Middle East/India which have now started happening with regular frequency. Well, while this piece has to do with my most recent trip to India, it was written while at Bangalore airport rather than in flight.

I am at the tail end of what has been a fantastic week of events and meetings in Mumbai and Bangalore. I had a chance to speak at the Indian Venture Capital Association (IVCA) Conclave in Mumbai, and meet some awesome entrepreneurs and investors both in Mumbai and Bangalore. Iron Pillar, my firm, announced a mega round for one of our star companies, FreshToHome, led by Amazon. Layer on top of that an incredible speech last week about India’s potential by Deepak Bagla, the CEO of Invest India, that has gone absolutely viral for the right reasons. I was on an absolute high with a big smile on my face as I headed to the Bangalore airport to catch my flight back to SFO on Saturday morning. The entrance line to the terminal, while long, moved along better than expected. The Air India check-in counter was surprisingly empty. I had gotten to the counter about an hour and 20 minutes prior to my departure. The flight was to SFO via Delhi.

“Going to Delhi sir?” the gentleman named Ganesh at the counter asked politely.

I replied, “yes, but with an onward connection to SFO”.

After about 3-4 minutes of working on the computer screen, Ganesh had a perplexed look, and something in my gut told me that this was the start of a downward spiral. A few minutes later still, Ganesh called a couple of other colleagues and as they huddled as if to discuss strategy for a cricket match. The interaction then went something like this…

Since the BLR-DEL flight was at 10 am, and it was getting close to 9 am, I simply asked “what’s going on? Is there a problem?”

“Well sir, your ticket is not showing ‘confirmed’ in our system”.?

“But my booking (I handed the phone with the Air India confirmation) shows that it is indeed confirmed”

“Sir, you will need to call the agency you used to make the booking”

“I booked directly on the Airindia website so there is no agency involved”

“Let me check again sir”

Ganesh clearly had no idea what was going on. He called a couple of other folks (Venky and Srini) over to the counter, and finally started calling colleagues on the phone trying the higher-ups “upstairs” to figure things out.

I asked calmly again “can you tell what the core issue is”.

“Sir, the system is showing your Delhi-San Francisco ticket as ‘open’ so we are not able to issue your ticket or boarding pass”.

By now it’s 9:10 am and the probability of making it on to the Delhi bound flight is diminishing by the minute. To be honest, I was less concerned at this point about getting to Delhi. I was a lot more concerned about getting home to SFO.

Finally, one other gentleman got added to the Air India workstream who told me “sir, the Delhi-SFO flight is cancelled”.

Somehow, that made me feel slightly better. I knew that these things happen and even though my inbound flight from SFO to Mumbai on Air India a few days earlier was quite good, the fact that there was an issue with the aircraft and the onward DEL-SFO flight was cancelled seemed to now be in line with my expectation of Air India (the last time I flew Air India was about seven years ago, and it might have been the same aircraft pictured at the top of this article). In these situations, I always remind myself of a simple rule: Disappointment = Expectation – Reality. So, as long as expectations are low, one keeps disappointments to a minimum. What came next was the real googly…or curve ball for the readers from the US.

“What are my options?”, I asked Ganesh and his colleagues.

“If there is a non-stop flight tomorrow between BLR and SFO, I am fine with that”, I suggested.

Suddenly Ganesh and friends smiled as if I had gotten them out of a major conundrum.

“AI-175 tomorrow!” said Venky?

“Are there seats available on that one?”

“Yes, sir. Plenty of availability” smiled Venky

They communicated the plan to an older Air India gentleman who appeared to be their supervisor. I did not get his name but he approached me and said “sir, there is a problem with the Delhi-SFO journey (stating the obvious). But you can take tomorrow’s flight. You just need to go to the Air India counter (he pointed to the polar opposite end of the terminal). I will call them and they will take care of you”.

So while I was disappointed about getting home a day later, the fact that it was going to be a non-stop somehow made it more acceptable. I trekked to the Air India counter where Shamini and team seem to be expecting me. This should be fairly quick, or so I thought.

Shamini asked me politely, “just have a seat sir”.

“Just have a seat sir” in my mind is not a signal for quick resolution. I sat for about 5-6 minutes without much progress. I went back to Shamini. “How long do I have to wait?”

“Sir, it should be about 20 minutes”

I knew that she had no clue how long ‘it’ would take. After another ten minutes or so, I finally pressed her for the process.?

“What was the next step and why was it taking so long?”

She finally replied “sir, we are waiting for approval from the DM”. DM, by the way, stands for “Duty Manager”.

Ah hah! So, apparently, the change to a future flight (due to Air India’s own equipment/aircraft issue) required signature authority from the DM who, as I later found out, was on a breakfast break. I went online to get some information on who this DM might be (so I could DM the DM:)) and while I did not find the name, I was able to locate an email and a phone number for the so-called DM for Air India’s Bangalore office. I emailed?[email protected]?and got an automatic bounce. I called the phone number which, not surprisingly, was switched off. I simply smiled (as crying was not an option). I waited for about 25 minutes and approached Shamini again. She knew I was fairly irritated by now. She told me that someone had gone to speak with the DM upstairs. After another 10 minutes or so, the original senior gentleman (from episode 1) came to the office. He took a deep breath (negative signal)…

“Sir, you see, we cannot confirm you on tomorrow’s non-stop flight. The flight is full”.

Before he could say another word, I had already done an online search and knew that there were indeed seats available on that non-stop flight. I showed him my screen. He was genuinely perplexed and/or embarrassed. He seemed to call the DM indicating that the passenger (yours truly) had pre-empted their bluff. He spoke in Kannada (the local language of the state of Karnataka where Bangalore is located) so I could not understand the overall conversation, but got the gist of it.

He turned again to me and said, “sir, there are two options. There is a 9 pm flight to Delhi and then a 3 am Delhi-SFO onward flight. We will put you on that OR we will put you on the non-stop tomorrow”.?

“Why can’t you tell me now? And when will I know?”, an obvious set of questions.

“Sir, you do one thing. Please give us your details…email ID and phone number. We will send mail to you informing you of the flight that you are on”

Back to Shamini…

“Sir, can I have your India mobile number?”

“I don’t have an India number”, I replied (I actually have one, but don’t use it often so wanted to stick to the US number to simplify my life)

Shamini was shocked…”You don’t have an India mobile???”. I suppose everyone approaching the Air India counter at BLR airport is expected to have an India mobile phone (note to foreign travelers in similar situations). Knowing that this was going to be yet another issue, I reached for the high end Oppo out of the computer bag and switched it on (hoping that the battery still had some juice from a week ago when I had looked at it last). Remarkably it did.

“Sir, can you give a missed call to the landline number in the office”. I tried multiple times, but for some reason, the call simply did not go through.

Finally, taking pity on me, Shamini asked me to give a missed call to her mobile number. That somehow worked and after a couple of whatsapp test messages, I wrote down my email ID and handed Shamini the piece of paper.?

“We will email you by 4 pm”. I left Shamini with a smile but something in the pit of my stomach told me that somehow that was a ‘definite maybe’ and not a commitment to resolve the issue. While I was speaking on the phone with an Iron Pillar colleague giving her an update on my play-by-play, I was approached by yet another Air India employee whose role seems to have been to escort me out of the terminal.

“Sir, are you looking to exit?”

“Well, I am not considering spending the next 10 hours at the airport. So, yes, I would like to exit”, I responded a bit sarcastically.

As she guided me out the door (used by passengers entering the terminal), we abruptly got stopped by the policeman checking IDs of the incoming travelers. He instructed the young woman from Air India to follow protocol, fill out my name and passport info in the ledger before I could be actually exit the terminal. Well, we followed protocol. I made my way to the car rental counter to get my standard 8 hours/80 km sedan package, now that I would have some time to squeeze in more meetings in Bangalore throughout the day.

As expected, 4 pm came and went without any notification from Air India…

To be honest I was apprehensive about flying Air India. As I mentioned earlier, the non-stop flight from SFO to BOM was actually pretty good, completely shattering the low expectation I had. But the Bangalore experience brought home the focus that while what Deepak Bagla is saying is truly impressive about India’s journey (I am very bullish on India, btw), the on-the-ground realities should lead to pragmatism and realistic expectations. I certainly hope that the Mr. Chandrasekaran and Tata Group can make a real difference in Air India’s overall processes and image, with the recent transition of Air India from a government owned enterprise to a Tata Group owned entity. By the way, I was impressed with the quality of the Air India staff and their real desire to resolve the issue. Perhaps AI (Air India) can indeed leverage #AI and workflow automation to create a company that can truly delight passengers and customers. Until then, as I finish writing this, I will wait for the Bangalore DM to approve my flight change:)

(p.s. – the identities/names of the employees have been altered in this article)

(p.p.s - the photo used for this article is from the actual 777-200 ER that flew me from BLR to SFO)