A couple of days ago, I covered how an Air India first class passenger reported having an absolutely awful experience, on one of the carrier’s longest routes, the 18-hour journey from Delhi (DEL) to Toronto (YYZ), with a refueling stop in Vienna (VIE). I’d like to provide an update, as Air India has apologized and has offered compensation, but it leaves something to be desired.
In this post:
Air India offers $116 apology for awful 18-hour flight
As a reminder, an Air India first class passenger took to social media, to share what no doubt sounds like an unacceptable experience on a very long flight:
- The seat malfunctioned repeatedly, and had to be manually fixed by the crew
- An overhead light fell on the passenger’s head
- A broken USB port with a sharp edge cut the passenger’s fingers
- Bed bugs on the seat and blanket gave the passenger multiple rashes from bites
- Torn upholstery and cracked panels were visible, with zero maintenance
He reached out to Air India about this incident. What was the carrier’s response?
We have taken note of the serious concerns raised regarding flight AI187 on 12 October 2025, including the condition of the seat, lighting issues, and other distressing experiences. Your feedback has been forwarded to the concerned team for thorough review and future improvement. While these experiences cannot be undone, a goodwill gesture of INR 10,174 is being offered in recognition of this situation. Kindly provide the following bank details along with a copy of a void cheque to facilitate processing.
Just to convert that amount, Air India is offering a total of $116 in compensation.
My take on Air India’s insufficient compensation offer
Suffice it to say that the $116 offered is a long ways from the “full refund and compensation for physical injury, discomfort and health risk” that the traveler was requesting.
For what it’s worth, I reached out to the traveler to ask how he booked his ticket and how much he paid. It’s useful context — no matter what, $116 is way too little compensation for what was described, but obviously the amount you should receive depends on whether you paid $10,000 for your ticket, or redeemed partner miles.
The traveler explained to me that he had upgraded his ticket to first class for $1,500. So I have to say, offering what essentially amounts to a 10% refund on the upgrade cost seems rather unreasonable.
Even years after being privatized, it’s simply embarrassing that Air India is offering such an experience. Worst of all, this wasn’t even an isolated incident, and what this traveler experienced seems closer to the norm than being an exception (maybe not the bug part, but the general issue with cabin maintenance).
Of course all airlines take some liberties with their marketing, but I can’t help but point out how incredibly deceiving Air India is with how it describes its first class experience:
Experience true luxury in the sky with our best in class first class cabin. A single step on board Air India’s first class will exemplify the true meaning of luxury.
Sorry, best in what class, exactly? Among Indian airlines offering a long haul first class product? Well, yes, I guess by that definition, Air India is best/only “in class.”
I totally get that Air India can’t be fully rebuilt overnight. However, the airline simply has to do a better job with maintaining cabins, even if they’re otherwise outdated. The issues experienced come down to basic maintenance, and can’t be blamed on delays with new seats, etc.
What’s also worth mentioning — and it’s not surprising — is that the kind of compensation airlines offer depends entirely on how viral something goes. For example, just over a year ago, a video went viral after someone had a “nightmare” flight in Air India first class.
The experience actually seemed less bad than this one (at least there were no bugs crawling in the sheets), but the traveler ended up being offered a full refund. Presumably that was simply because the video was viewed many millions of times.
Bottom line
An Air India first class passenger had a truly awful flight, with everything from a reading light falling on his head, to bugs being present in the sheets and causing rashes. While the traveler requested a full refund and additional compensation (unlikely), the airline went to the other extreme, and offered a total of $116 in compensation. That doesn’t seem to cut it, if you ask me…
What do you make of Air India’s compensation offer?
India lol
Air India will never reach the level the CEO is chasing.
Get a loada those Tatas…
A disgusting airline representing the the state that country its actually in
$116 goes a long way in India. But what about Air India special: golden showers ? Should the receiver or giver pay for it, or who should be compensated for the inconvenience?
They say "The Best Things in Life Are Free"...
Even in Economy this would be an insulting offer.
For some reason it has become totally ok for westerners to continuously demean Indians as dirty, smelly, filthy etc. Air India's problems are no more frequent than any other Asian or Western airline. If Ben posted this same article for South African Airways or TAAG Angola, there would be outcries of his overt racist attitude. Are we just going to act like our beautiful air personnel on United or AA would have acted any differently?
...For some reason it has become totally ok for westerners to continuously demean Indians as dirty, smelly, filthy etc. Air India's problems are no more frequent than any other Asian or Western airline. If Ben posted this same article for South African Airways or TAAG Angola, there would be outcries of his overt racist attitude. Are we just going to act like our beautiful air personnel on United or AA would have acted any differently?
I also challenge anyone on this blog to go visit a true five star hotel in any Indian city and compare it to your average Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons in the USA. It's not even close. India wins by a long shot.
I know India is becoming a world power and it scares white folks. But it's time to put this racist nonsense to bed.
What a load of nationalist rubbish. Air India is garbage basket case! I have only ever seen positive comments about South African Airways customer experience. It seems your racism is showing by your bias against SAA. It’s plain Indian hypocrisy of accusing others of racism for reporting facts about national embarrassment that is Air India!
India is absolutely nowhere close to being a world power. The levels of cleanliness and filth are better in most sub-Saharan countries including Tanzania, Zambia, and Angola (since you mentioned TAAG). No other country seems to have the level of arrogance that India does. India’s reputation as a dirty and filthy country is based in reality, as I can attest from personal experience.
I'll say it, South African Airways is not good these days, like, at all; for anyone traveling in southern Africa, the best airline is certainly, without any doubt, Airlink (it's better than most US and European carriers for regional 2-3 hour flights in their E190).
India is becoming world power only in whatsapp universities touted by its nationalist government!!! Yes some western airlines are bad but not as bad for sure!
The 22nd may well turn out to be the "Indian century", but it has a long way to go as of now. Inflight bed bugs is a whole new level of gross, and a whole new level of neglect. This is why foreign carriers sell so many fares to Indian nationals - even the locals avoid Air India.
I was very close to booking AI LHR-BOM on a former EY 77W in F. Seems like a great deal for 60k AV miles. I think I'll fly economy through with EY through AUH instead.
I am Indian and would never fly Air India. It is super embarrassing when India is known for hotel hospitality like the Taj hotels. Don't understand why that can't be translated to the sky.
We are staying at the Taj Cape Town in a few days. Looks wonderful!
I'm 100% with you, Mike. Luxury hotels in India are next-level spotless and offer next-level service. Air India is, as a whole, complacent, bloated, and lazy. This is not representative of the "real" India, but unfortunately many people look to the national carrier as an example of national character, and Air India paints a grim, unappealing picture.
Under no circumstances would I provide my bank account info via email to an Indian company.
The qualms here are not really about cybersecurity or 'op sec,' as you attempted to describe; it's about maintaining a clean aircraft and basic standards for running a commercial airline in 2025. But, ok... anyway... yeah, don't give away your bank account info to anyone via email, I guess.
Air India is literally doing Proximanova.
Instead of a full compensation, the passenger was basically told to "visualise yourself flying Qsuites or Air France or JAL or something of that kind! ;)"
Congrats VT-CIE. At least you seem to be working for a major company.
What is 'VT-CIE'? Is he like the 'Tim Dunn' of Air India?
Air India version of Tim Dunn who gaslights Ben as well.
Gastlights Ben about what, exactly? Like, into thinking Air India is a 'good' airline? Surely, anyone with 'common sense' would know to avoid them. Like, there's a reason their fares are cheaper... I've only ever taken UA and AA to DEL from NYC. And, I'd rather take QR or EK to anywhere that wasn't nonstop within the subcontinent.
That's just one of them.
(One of) The worst one was the quoted "visualise yourself flying Qsuites or Air France or JAL or something of that kind! ;)".
This is what he said when he forced Ben to fly Copa 737 instead of already booked itinerary, which turned out to be an abysmal experience.
Telling Ben that bad experiences airlines offer are okay as well as justifying his pressure.
To this date, VT-CIE/Proximanova continues to glorify Air India and gaslight Ben.
If the Copa 737 is the one with 2-2 lie-flat, it’s not bad, but their tendency to swap it for the ones the recliners… not nice.
This is sad to say, but $118 is more than most US airlines are required to compensate us by law, because, you know, we don't have any real air passenger rights legislation in our country. Maybe, when the adults are back in-charge, Congress could legislate something like EU-261 or Canada's APPR, which would provide a baseline, bare-minimum standard for what the airlines owe for significant delays and cancellations under their control. You know, bugs aren't...
This is sad to say, but $118 is more than most US airlines are required to compensate us by law, because, you know, we don't have any real air passenger rights legislation in our country. Maybe, when the adults are back in-charge, Congress could legislate something like EU-261 or Canada's APPR, which would provide a baseline, bare-minimum standard for what the airlines owe for significant delays and cancellations under their control. You know, bugs aren't 'great,' and neither is getting stuck overnight in Cincinnati; while it won't prevent those harms, an extra several hundred dollars for your troubles would make it a little better, and help cover you for the inconvenience.