More observations, on a Kuwait->Mumbai flight.
I travelled on Kuwait Airways non-stop from Kuwait to Mumbai. After heading past security and emigration, and the duty free shops, I got to my gate. The gate next to mine was the daily Delta flight to Atlanta. It was amusing to see the security theater, random questions and checks made of luggage, people taking their shoes off, etc. When I went through the metal detectors to get into the checkpoint, I had to go back a second time, since my watch and belt buckle presumably tripped it up. The security screener (a Kuwaiti) was polite, and handed me the small bin after it went through.
The flight was about 2/3rds full. I was one of just a few (maybe 1/10th of the plane at the most) people on the plane who wasn't a laborer/working class individual (At the very most, most of them made $10k/year, many of them closer to $5k/year). The cabin crew was extra polite to me -- it was disconcerting to me -- I paid ~the same coach fares that they (or their employers) paid.
To be fair the cabin crew does have to deal with the problem that a very large percentage of the people on these flights are extremely unfamiliar with plane travel, and have basically packed as much stuff acquired from the Gulf for giving to family. Similarly, during the peak summer times, full families with kids travel heavily for their long summer trips home, with everything necessary for a couple of months, and large amounts of gifts. I'm familiar with this route, having had taken it every summer when I was in Kuwait. The price sensitivity on this route is extreme -- one summer we travelled Business class -- which was just $30 more than the (at that time $400, now $200-$300) normal round trip fare. Which is clearly an excellent deal, and affordable if you're an upper middle class American, but it shows you how poor the average customer on that route was.
After 3.5 hours in the air, getting out of Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport was relatively painless. Immigration was an orderly, fairly rapidly moving line (~15 minutes in total, and 4 jets had just flown in), getting my baggage took a bit longer than usual, but after that, I got waved through by a customs official (other people were checked -- I think it's the dressing relatively rich factor again), and got home in 20 minutes to my grandmother's place, which is a record.
The flight was about 2/3rds full. I was one of just a few (maybe 1/10th of the plane at the most) people on the plane who wasn't a laborer/working class individual (At the very most, most of them made $10k/year, many of them closer to $5k/year). The cabin crew was extra polite to me -- it was disconcerting to me -- I paid ~the same coach fares that they (or their employers) paid.
To be fair the cabin crew does have to deal with the problem that a very large percentage of the people on these flights are extremely unfamiliar with plane travel, and have basically packed as much stuff acquired from the Gulf for giving to family. Similarly, during the peak summer times, full families with kids travel heavily for their long summer trips home, with everything necessary for a couple of months, and large amounts of gifts. I'm familiar with this route, having had taken it every summer when I was in Kuwait. The price sensitivity on this route is extreme -- one summer we travelled Business class -- which was just $30 more than the (at that time $400, now $200-$300) normal round trip fare. Which is clearly an excellent deal, and affordable if you're an upper middle class American, but it shows you how poor the average customer on that route was.
After 3.5 hours in the air, getting out of Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport was relatively painless. Immigration was an orderly, fairly rapidly moving line (~15 minutes in total, and 4 jets had just flown in), getting my baggage took a bit longer than usual, but after that, I got waved through by a customs official (other people were checked -- I think it's the dressing relatively rich factor again), and got home in 20 minutes to my grandmother's place, which is a record.