MY MALLYA MILES
My article in the Times of India, Vizag edition dated 17th April 2016
MY MALLYA MILES
I first started flying Kingfisher Red airlines
from Vizag in 2009. Gosh the airlines had fantastic branding. Their counters were
bright red and white and that sparkling orange and blue kingfisher bird, with
its wings spread, made a terrific impact. At the check-in counter the lady in
red had such a sophisticated air that we wouldn’t mind taking the centre seat
on the flight if she gave it to us. The bright red coach took us to the ATR
aircraft, K-I-N-G-F-I-S-H-E-R was emblazoned in all caps across the length of
the aircraft. The first letter K and the last letter R were a little bigger
than the rest of the letters. New flyers stopped and took pictures for
remembrance and for bragging. And as we climbed up the ramp we were greeted by
the ladies with flashing smiles. With their fashionably short red pencil skirts,
white blouse and red vests, they looked like models. We took our red seats with
a sense of anticipation. Little did we know that with all that red everywhere, the
airline itself would fly deep into the red soon.
Great expectations
I flew Kingfisher quite frequently on
business and being mindful of acquiring frequent flyer miles I joined the King
Club and had memorized my membership number 26811632. I began accumulating
miles and carefully hoarding them. I planned to use these miles for that family
trip abroad as Kingfisher was starting services to London, Hong Kong, Singapore
and Bangkok. The mogul himself would address all his letters to me personally,
yes personally, I could see his signature printed boldly at the bottom of his
letters. He told me how much he valued my business and that he was eagerly
waiting to hear from me. I had visions of
joining the Kingfisher Calendar photo shoot in South Africa, Australia and the
French Riviera helping photographer Atul Kasbekar with his props or assisting
makeup artist Bianca Haartkopf as she prepared those ladies for the next bikini
shoot.
Mallya my friend
Since Mallya and I were such big
friends I imagined that we would be routinely taking a personal jet to some
exotic island, where we would have cocktails together at a Kingfisher party,
swinging to the sound of Calypso music as a bevy of his lady friends fawned
over us. I fancied being invited by Mallya for a weekend on his Yacht as we
sailed the Caribbean living the good times. Don’t tell anyone but I even
imagined driving one of his Force India Formula 1 cars. Due to all these
reasons I accumulated and hoarded the miles carefully. At one stage I used to
get preferential treatment for my luggage, they would put a nice “Priority”
sticker on them and on arrival the suitcase would come out first on the luggage
belt allowing me to gloat quietly as I walked briskly out of the airport
resisting the urge to look back. Ah the little pleasures of life!
The goody bag
Talking of little pleasures, at the
beginning Kingfisher used to give passengers a transparent plastic pouch with a
zip, containing a few complimentary things, like a face wipe, a mouth freshener
and best of all a red Kingfisher branded pen. I was a frequent flyer those days
and would be quite thrilled to collect these pouches and pass them around when
I got home. I had a few pens kept on my desk, I did not use them for a long
time and when I eventually tried to write with them the ink had run dry. I wish
I had saved a few bags for nostalgia’s sake. But you know how it is; you don’t
miss it until it’s gone for ever. Tragedy was about to strike.
The beginning of the end
Actually there were some signals of
impending tragedy. Little hints. The lady at the counter stopped greeting me
quite so cheerfully; the flight attendants were not as bubbly as before, flight
cancellations became frequent and the number of routes declined. Initially when
flights were cancelled we were put on a Jet Airways service. On 17th
September 2011 there was a massive earthquake in Gangtok, Sikkim, where my wife
and her companions were vacationing. After a couple of days they made their way
over precarious roads to Bagdogra to take their Kingfisher flight 2812 to
Kolkata. But hours before the flight I got a sms that the flight was cancelled.
Thankfully Jet Airways agreed to carry the Kingfisher passengers and the
travellers made their way back home safely. But that was the beginning of the
end. In early 2012 there was a number of communications from Anshu Sarin, Vice
President of the Guest Loyalty programme stressing that everything would
be tickety-boo but soon after things began to unravel.
Paisa vasool
Faced with loss of my accumulated
miles I tried to use them as often as I could. But by that time the number of
routes had declined and Vizag was taken off their map. A couple of routes were
still operational and at one time I considered just flying back and forth on
that route to use up the miles and spite my friend Mallya for disappointing me.
Secretly I kept my swimming trunks, floral shirt, straw hat and dark glasses packed
just in case he invited me to the Bahamas. Later I started rationalizing that
the company would come back soon and they would give me double my miles for
being such a patient and loyal customer. I also thought that he would probably
send me a truck of beer to make up for the loss of miles. You know the business
adage “if you can’t give rewards give flatulence”. I mentioned this to my
friends and could hear one of them calling a local psychiatrist behind my back.
What about my miles?
Now Mallya has flown away and
everyone wants their money back. He owes a humongous amount of money to the
banks but he also owes his ex-employees and the oil companies. Rumour has it
that he also owes his cable TV company, his driver, his dhobi, the cook, and
the local pan wala. Banks only think of their Rs. 9,000 crores but what about
my miles? Who will get me my miles? The Enforcement Directorate must also
consider poor little deprived me. I want my miles! I want to fly for free! I
want that yacht trip! I want to join the photo shoot! I want that truck load of
beer! Wait. There is a van outside, perhaps the beer has come. No, it looks
like someone called the ambulance, I can see some burly men in white jackets
coming to my door, and one of them is carrying a straitjacket. Excuse me I have
to stop writing now.
Oo La La La Le O!
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