A Short Trip Westwards, officially

A trip westwards… along the setting sun, late afternoon.

Reached airport very early, partly because of my recent preference to try & avoid last minute rush, and also an error from my side on the flight timings, fortunately I presumed ahead of ETA and not later ! Got boarding pass and sat down to kill some time… ( no delight @ check-in process!)

Finished off the last part of the beautiful book I have been reading! More on that later, in detail, to try to do justice.

Cleared my gmail, did some twitter and did not touch facebook, listened to some music, … all on the new IPhone.  Now, some of my friends have been asking about IPhone. After checking out various options, the toss was between IPhone and Blackberry. Apart from features and feedback from friends, the fact that unfortunately BB is being seen as a typical teenager phone (!) did not help. Having evolved from Nokia to  Sony Ericson to  Samsung, I have no doubt: IPhone 3GS is the cellphone.  Nothing else matches the versatility & convenience of IPhone 3GS. It is user-friendly. Camera is quite good. And, I am yet to explore the programs available at cost/free downloadable. To summarise, phone/music/camera/basic surfing are the features you are looking at on your phone, need not look beyond IPhone. I am yet to come across a techie who utilizes features beyond these.  One drawback I observed was the battery life. For all the fantastic features, the battery life is a disappointment.

Steve Jobs is considered to be the best of CEO’s, especially in tough market conditions prevailing now. He has redefined personal technology, thru Mac, IPod, IPad…. People have been lining up for IPad, having succumbed to the temptation…!!

A colleague, fellow-traveller, joined just in time. We boarded and took off… I took a short nap, as always. Somehow, I always got good sleep flying… though while travelling with family, my son has been quite critical about it.

Driving to hotel, the fellow traveler raised the question of customer service. When, two senior bankers are travelling together, service standards becomes one of the easy topics to pick up. While -he was unhappy about the check-in-to-boarding experience at departure terminus, he still seemed to be carrying the thoughts…we were sitting at separate rows, despite our efforts to get adjacent seats. I shared with him one of my favourite brands in all categories was Jet Airways and how their service standards have not only been good to experience, but also to emulate. I wonder, why so many other air carriers just fail to give minimum customer-experience (if not, delight) while flying. We were flying business class ( remembered Shashi Tharoor’s comment, ‘cattle class!)  I was also trying to cheer him saying we are going to another good brand, our hotel which we have specifically chosen based on our earlier experiences.  As the taxi hit the last stretch, the road by the sea, the hotel  stood tall, as though waiting for two demanding customers….