Wharton Journal

Issue date: 1/22/07 Section: Perspectives

This winter break I had the pleasure of traveling to India and visiting parts of both the south and the north of the country. For those of you who haven't been, I'd highly recommend a trip to see the amazing sights and get a feel for the variety of interesting peoples you'll find there. My trip also allowed me to experience several methods of transportation, from planes and trains to automobiles and elephants. We never did make it onto a camel, although our taxi almost hit one once. I'd love the opportunity to tell you a little bit about the country's flagship transportation carrier, Indian Railways, and compare it to another country's flagship carrier - British Airways.

After a series of canceled and delayed flights, I finally left for India, via Heathrow airport, over a day later than expected. My fiancée and I were flying British Airways economy class, but by a miracle still not yet understood we were magically upgraded to business class on the flight from London to Bangalore. Upon landing in Bangalore, we headed directly to the train station for a 3 hour train ride to Mysore. After our British Airways upgrade we felt like high rollers and opted to take Second Class seats on the Indian Railways train ride. Below I'll compare
the two transportation experiences in an easy to read chart.

I realize some of you may be thinking, "Hey, this isn't a fair comparison," and you are right. While the second class ticket on Indian Railways was the best class available on the train, BA did offer a higher class option than the one I was in. Despite the handicap against BA, I think you'll find the comparison between the two premium methods of transportation quite informative.



So, it would appear that we have a 6 - 6 - 1 tie! Both companies put forth a good effort. If I were to make one recommendation
to each company, I'd suggest that Indian Railways allow men and women to share the same lounge and I'd probably ask BA to either let me pee right out of the plane (how cool would that be) or get some porters to carry stuff on their heads around Heathrow. It would really add to the atmosphere. As for my fellow students considering traveling on one of these fine means of transportation, I'd definitely recommend a bottle of Purell hand sanitizer for your Indian Railways trip and a baseball (or cricket) bat to beat the annoying children on British Airways.

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