05.19.07
In Which Alexander Really Scares His Readers
The coolest clothes I have seen, though, are those worn by Kingfisher Airlines staff. Male airport staff wore red Nehru-collared jackets with black pants and black shoes. Very Indian, sharp, professional. The flight attendants wore fitted white button-down shirts with buttons concealed in the placket, two button-flap pockets, and roll sleeves with a button tab to keep the sleeves rolled. Over this, they wore a waist-length red jacket also with roll sleeves and button tab, complemented by red knee-length skirts and red shoes. The collars of the shirts stuck out over the jacket. They wore pearls around their necks and in their ears. They wore makeup and had shorter hair (by Indian standards) that they did not braid and consequently they looked very Bollywood. Part of me was mildly disgusted by this. Conspicuously absent from all of them were bindi. For the snack service, they exchanged their jackets for something (also red) that looked like a waistcoat in front and an apron in back. There might be a name for this, I don’t know. They switched back to the jackets for landing. This made me nostalgic for a time I never experienced when men and women wore different things at different times during the day. Though if I had grown up having to change multiple times a day, I probably wouldn’t find it so novel. I think what most impressed me though, was that their uniforms were…well…uniform. It seems like a lot of airlines in America have an entire clothing line available for their flight attendants, which lets them express themselves I guess, but doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of a uniform? I really wish I had gotten to see what the cockpit crew wore.
In any case, more about Kingfisher than the attire managed to impress and bother me. When I first got on the plane (a very new Airbus A321), an instrumental (piano) version of Fernando (by ABBA) was playing. Not very Indian. Though I do like that song… Petit bottles of “lime juice” were handed out before departure. It was like weak, very salty limeade. So salty, in fact, that I couldn’t drink it. Other passengers seemed to like it and emptied their bottles.
Welcome packs were distributed to passengers, containing a pen, headphones, mints, etc. I’ve never seen this on a domestic flight before.
The “snack” service, which I had thought would be peanuts, turned out to be a small (but hot and filling) meal. The option of veg or non-veg was given. I chose veg. An Indian gentleman in my row who had also ordered vegetarian introduced himself after I ordered. Tea was served with the meal in dainty red tea cups. I did not care for the dessert. Packaged with the silverware was a package of “After Mint,” which I had read about somewhere. I did not like it.
On the second leg of the flight, I chose non-veg. To my surprise, both meals were different than they had been on the first flight. The dessert was much more to my liking. This time coffee was offered to me before tea was, so I had coffee instead of tea. Orange juice was served during the flight instead of salt-ade beforehand. This also was more to my liking.