Recently I was on a short trip to India and both my flights (inbound and outbound) were from the New Delhi International Airport, Terminal 3. A few years ago, when I had seen only airports in India I thought that the Delhi Airport must be one of the best in the world. How mistaken I was!! And I found this the hard way this time.
I had some 8 hours to kill before my next flight to Assam after I landed at Delhi. I went ahead to the transfers section and when the police man saw my ticket he suggested that I pee before I enter the transfers section. He said that the section didn’t have any fucking toilets!! So, I decided to go to take the exit and re-enter the airport only to meet another police man who took a long and hard look at my ticket and made some faces and asked twice if I am going to the NorthEast. After I re-entered the airport I found that the toilets were after the security check and as my flight was some 7 hours later, the boarding passes were not being distributed then.
Then I decided to do the only logical thing – surf the Internet and while away my time. This produced another difficulty. The wifi service at the airport provided only 30 minutes of free service, after which you had to buy access. This was the first taste of lousy internet in India for me after quite a while. I used the 30 minutes and then decided to buy some more time, but yes I could not use my European card to make the purchase. So, that’s how I spent 7 hours in the airport. Without internet and peeing for quite a while and then finally eating a tasty meal at KFC and boarding the flight.
While returning, I knew the situation and so I checked in early this time and thought about using the free 30 minutes wifi. I switched on my phone, which had my European SIM inside. It showed Airtel and started functioning and I started browsing the internet. It was only after a while later that I realized I was using international data roaming and that was the most horrific realization ever! I switched off the phone and prayed that the bill is not too large.
So finally, last week I got my bill and I used 44,50 Euros on roaming for just the little internet usage I had at the Delhi Airport. It was a shitty experience for me at the airport and now I can safely say that it is not the best airport in the world, whatever the hundreds of hoardings inside the airport might shout – I don’t buy it. The airport sucks.