09 October,2009 08:48 AM IST | | Prahlad Nanjappa
Like one of my friends said on Facebook: Air India had just added on to in-flight entertainment last week.
Somewhere over Karachi's airspace, on a flight from one of the obscure Gulf states, business class passengers were treated to the diverting spectacle of pursers and pilots slugging it out. Bit players included a sobbing airhostess whose 'modesty' had been outraged, and a co-pilot who had let go off the joystick to become a headliner in the live theatre. You almost expected sponsors to be screaming out their product pitches by the end of it. (I mean, look at it this way, it was a soap opera with a target audience, riveted to every move; every marketer's dream.)
Rumour has it that Praful Patel and his co-mandarins at the sinking Air India ship, have been so encouraged by the responses and media hype generated over the crew clash, that they have now lined up a slew of other such diversions to woo passengers back to the Maharaja.
To counter Kingfisher's svelte hostesses in little red skirts, Air India will now have (drumroll and announcer trumpets to be inserted here) The Horrible Hostess Show. Approximately half an hour into your flight, just when you've settled down with your first drink and peanuts, and you're desperately flipping through the boring seventies programming that Air India's government sensibilities allow it, two hostesses will get into a mock cat fight. Mud will be slung, insults chucked, punches will be thrown. If you're sitting anywhere near them, you'll be fortunate enough to have your meal flung across the cabin. The winner of the round gets to repeat her performance on the return flight.u00a0u00a0u00a0
If you're lucky, you could be flying the one flight a week with the Foo Foo Flighters. Chances are tickets on these routes will be sold at a premium. Approximately 20,000 feet above sea level, just when you've gotten over the bumpiness of the clouds, a particularly incensed pilot, still angered at the cutting of his incentives, or the cropping of his inflated salary, will let the aircraft go into a belly flip. As people scream and overhead baggage spills out, the pilot (experienced with many hours of both flying and striking) will show you his moves just to spite the crap out of you. It's just like a reality show. Only you're the star.u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0
Designed to use the strengths of a disgruntled bloated staff and a bare bones cabin, these innovative measures, pundits already say, are bound to pull the Maharaja out of the tailspin it is in. Brand managers are already racing to sponsor these shows. And hostesses are limbering up to be fighting fit, literally.
News has just come in that to distract passengers from the irate tedium of a long- delayed flight, they're now thinking up innovative shows with the ground staff too.
