Air India: Descent into Despair

Once upon a time, the Maharaja wearing a turban, smiled engagingly, and served you warm towels. Today, he serves you cockroaches in your omelette and plummets you 10,000 feet to death. Welcome to Air India 2.0.

- Ravi Shankar

When the Tatas took over the airline in 2022, it was hailed as a corporate coronation: the return of the prodigal to its original home, to be lovingly nursed back to world-class splendour. Instead, it's a Titanic with wings. Let's not mince words: passengers have died. Before, too. When AI 171 fell out of the sky in Ahmedabad, the world was told it was a tragedy. No, it was a reckoning. It lasted 30 seconds in the air. It cost over 270 lives. Days later, a Delhi-bound AI Dreamliner returned to Hong Kong, its airport of origin, after the pilot suspected a technical issue. He said, "We don't want to continue further." a clear indication that the traumatised pilot would rather go back to base than trust his machine. Another flight from San Francisco to Mumbai was stuck in Kolkata because of a technical snag. Yet another was forced back to Delhi post-takeoff due to technical failure—marking yet another unscheduled diversion. On Tuesday, Air India cancelled seven international flights, including six operated by Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners, as part of precautionary checks on its Dreamliner fleet, following heightened safety scrutiny by aviation authorities in the aftermath of t