Criticism of State-Owned Air India Grows

NEW DELHI — When Bob Haygooni paid a midflight visit to a cockpit at his new employer, Air India, he was shocked. The pilots, he said, had completely covered the windows with newspaper to keep out the sun.

Air India's pilots held a 10-day strike recently over salaries.
“All you had in the cockpit was this yellowish glow, as the light permeated the newspaper,” Mr. Haygooni recalled, saying it was a visibility hazard he had never seen before in 30 years of flying.

But “this was a normal thing at Air India,” said Mr. Haygooni, a former United Airlines pilot who flew for the Indian airline for 16 months. In April 2010, however, he decided that the paycheck was not worth his concerns over what he considered the government’s haphazard approach to running its state-owned airline.

Interviews with more than a dozen experienced pilots hired in the last three years by Air India to work new international routes describe an airline with problems. But theirs are not the only complaints.

Passengers have abandoned Air India in droves, shunning the airline because of its reputation for poor customer service and late flights.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/business/global/26airindia.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hpw

claiming that a private corp would provide better service.

That why they have instruments

and this story comes on the heels of dozens of "rubber stamp" flight schools in India being uncovered, crediting student pilots with thousands of 'imaginary' flight hours...