Three Days in Amazing Calcutta
After traveling around by land during my first week in India, I arrive in Calcutta on a late-night Kingfisher Airlines flight from Hyderabad. The flight is great, and serves as a good model for what U.S. airlines could learn from if they were interested in learning anything. Everyone receives a full meal on the all-economy flight, we have Bollywood movies on our own individual screens, and the flight attendants are extremely gracious. It’s just like Jet Blue, except they actually deliver what they promise.
Due to air traffic control delays (something all too universal, unfortunately), we are about an hour and a half behind schedule, putting us getting into CCU airport close to midnight. I think Pico Iyer once wrote that all flights to Calcutta are destined to land at 3:00 a.m. By that standard, I suppose, we’re three hours early.
