Thanks to the efforts of Asian Voice we have direct flights to Amdavad from London. I have been travelling this route every year for 15 years. Travelling to India can be frustrating. Arriving from London it took close to 2 hours for luggage to arrive. My return flight was not easy either just to enter the terminal took 30 minutes with plenty of queue jumpers at hand.
In my frustration I shouted to the jumpers "you all want to go to the US, Canada, UK and are happy to queue there well then start here, in India" Some got the message, I was without a trolley dragging my suit cases, on hearing my complaint a young girl fought her way through the crowd and brought me a trolley, as a reward for trying to control the queue, it was heart warming and I thanked her, this was the India I loved.
The trauma continued inside with checkin and security took a total of 2 hours of queuing. Unbelievingly there was one gate allocated to three fights for boarding, when I asked a ground staff of my airline the reason for more chaos he replied "I am the only one on duty and the PA System is down". When India can send a mission to Mars organising an airport should not be that difficult.
Jayesh A Patel
Wimbledon
