The minister’s sunken seat

Indian citizens have been travelling on broken, uncomfortable seats all their life

Alok Tiwari

Among Air India’s many embarrassments was a Tweet last week by Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union minister for agriculture and rural development, that he found the seat on his flight from Bhopal to Delhi broken. It was uncomfortable enough for him to post a lengthy Tweet expressing his disappointment with the airline even after being taken over by Tatas. When he brought this to the notice of the crew, he learnt the seats have issues and this was conveyed to the management. Yet, these seats continued to be sold. Many co-passengers immediately offered their seat to Chouhan but, everyone’s favourite Mamaji that he is, he humbly declined and continued the journey in the same seat.

Since the Tweet was by a Union minister, it evoked immediate response from the airline. Apart from usual apology, Air India declared it was launching a probe into the matter. Chouhan’s colleague the aviation minister pitched in with instructions of an investigation. A former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar asked the airline to shed its casual attitude.

Days later it emerged that there was nothing wrong with the seat per se. The aircraft too was not one of the legacy planes that AI got. Those have all sorts of problems. This was a relatively new one with new seats. Being new age, the seat was designed to minimize passenger comfort and maximize airline’s profits by cutting down on even the essentials. It appears the bare bones seats having very low weight and thin cushion gives feeling of being ‘sunken’ for some passengers.

It was a bit surprising that Chouhan would notice this. One would have thought by this time the stalwart from MP who, despite losing his chief minister’s seat, delivered a clean sweep of his state to the BJP in the general elections and was then accommodated in Union cabinet, would have got used to a seat that is both sunken and shrunken. Obviously, it is not so. Those used to bigger and better seats do not easily get over it.

It might have been nothing more than another bit of turbulence for Air India which is in the midst of a years-long turnaround. What made Chouhan’s complaint interesting was the other points he made. He pointed out that it was unethical of the airline to offer uncomfortable and defective seats to the passengers after taking full fare from them. He asked if this was not cheating the passengers. Going a step further, Chouhan asked whether the Air India management will take any step to ensure no passenger suffered in this manner or whether it will continue to take advantage of passenger’s need for fast travel.

It was refreshing for a Union minister, no less, to not just recognize but also highlight this concept of reciprocity. Passengers pay the fares airline asks for and are thus entitled to the service they expect. This truer in case of Air India, a full-service carrier, than an airline like IndiGo or Akasa which sell themselves as budget carriers. But more than airlines and other businesses, Chouhan’s Tweet ought to be compulsory reading for all his colleagues in the government. It is about time they understood the fundamental principle he underlined.

Will his colleague in the Rail Bhavan Ashwini Vaishnaw take note? Just look beyond the Vande Bharat trains which too, despite the hype, are nowhere near international standards in comfort or speed. The rest of the railways service is becoming more decrepit and unreliable by the day. A paying railway passenger is as much entitled for a safe, comfortable, and punctual travel as Chouhan feels he is. May be, Jyotiraditya Scindia will reflect upon what kind of service the paying customers of BSNL are getting under his watch and how his successive predecessors did everything to run this once thriving company to the ground.

In fact, it could be applied to everything. If citizens are customers of a business called government, they are getting short-shrifted at every turn. We pay among the highest rates of taxes in the world and get among the lowest standard of services from our government. Be it healthcare, education, highways, or security. The politicians feel free to spend our money on winning votes rather than upgrading quality of citizen’s life. A single instance of discomfort on a less than hour long flight got Chouhan complaining on top of his voice. What, in his view, should Indian citizens be doing?

Could it be that we ourselves are to blame for this? Only those used to sitting on plush and raised seats can know the difference when given ‘sunken’ seats. Most of us Indians have known nothing else but sunken seats all our lives. For us, it is normal to have overcrowded railway stations where a stampede can occur any time. We are not surprised to find others sitting on our reserved seats, or dirty toilets, or absent teachers in village schools, or no doctor in PHC, or corrupt police, or non-working phones.

We do not complain about these things. Because we know it brings no change and can, in fact, bring trouble. If it is unethical for Tatas to offer a broken seat after charging full fare, it should be a crime for the ministers to offer a broken government after taking full taxes. I doubt we will ever see this level of accountability in public services. Instead, like Railways, we may just be reminded that we are charged only 53% of the cost of passenger travel.

For every failure or a gap in service, we are given the excuse of legacy issues that are to be dealt with. No doubt, Tatas too have legacy issues to deal with in Air India. I do not know what they are doing with the kind of seats Chouhan sat on. They do have an easy way out. Just blame it on Nehru!

This column appeared in Lokmat Times on Feb 26, 2025